How a liberal-backed proposal could limit your rights
May 15, 2007| By Nathaniel Ward
A proposed new law sponsored by Congressional liberals including Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) would impose a gag rule on ordinary Americans who seek to speak with government officials. This would keep big government bureaucrats from hearing the conservative ideas you and I both believe in.
The First Amendment to the Constitution maintains that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom… to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Yet this new law would effectively impose a gag rule on private citizens in their communications with government—all in the name of openness and transparency.
“The federal government is so enormous and complex that it is far too frequently insulated from the views of average Americans,” write Heritage experts Brian Walsh, Matthew Spalding and Andrew Grossman. Yet some in Congress seek to further insulate government by “creat[ing] a new gag rule that, using modern technology and bureaucratic efficiency, covers everyone and every issue that comes before the federal government.”
The very existence of the law, known as the Executive Branch Reform Act, “would chill the exercise of Americans’ free speech and government petitioning rights,” they argue. “The EBRA is a frontal attack” on Americans’ fundamental right to petition the government.
Here’s what would happen under the proposed law, which would have the government establish a massive database logging all “significant contacts” between government officials and private individuals.
- If you write a letter to President Bush or another official urging him to support conservative ideas, your name could end up in a big government database. This could cause many people to “self-censor’ and limit their contacts with policymakers in the Executive Branch “out of a reasonable fear that someone, whether inside or outside of government, might retaliate against them.”
- Government officials would be less likely to communicate with the American people. More than 8,000 executive branch employees would be subject to the new rules, according to estimates.
- By mandating disclosure of even incidental conversations about government workings, the law “would be unconstitutional in its application against many or possibly all executive branch officials.”
“This kind of proposal is so offensive to American principles of government and to the Constitution that it does not merit serious consideration by Congress. But if Congress ignores its constitutional duty to and sends such legislation to the President, he should veto it, pursuant to his own oath to preserve, defend, and uphold the Constitution.”
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
