Shh! We're Voting Here

From CitizenLink:

Focus on the Family Action Chairman James C. Dobson, Ph.D., today called on Americans to contact their senators about a measure he said constitutes "a grave threat" to freedom of speech.

"Democrats and a few Republicans are trying very, very quickly to insulate themselves from the public -- and to do it by muzzling people like us," Dobson said on his Focus on the Family radio broadcast.

S. 1, a lobbying-reform bill, is the first to come to a vote in the new Democrat-controlled Congress. One of its many provisions would require grassroots groups to report directly to the secretary of the Senate and clerk of the House any time they spend money to communicate to their constituents on public-policy issues that are before Congress.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said Section 220 would subject such groups to miles of red tape and greatly increase their costs -- difficulties that could critically hamper their ability to rally constituents to contact their elected officials.

"This should be called the 'Silence the Citizens Act of 2007,' " Perkins said.

The bill is so complex that, even though it appears to exempt churches from its provisions, it might not actually do so.

Read the rest.

When the Founders established our nation, political speech is exactly the sort of speech they wanted to protect. Congress has no right silencing grassroots groups in this manner. What kind of leaders want to gag the citizenry from discussing the issues on which they'll be voting? If the silencing of private citizens is one of the top priorities of the new Democrat-controlled Congress so they can shove through their legislation without the electorate hearing about it, this could be a rough couple years.