Congratulations for helping defeat S.1, the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007

*Bills like S. 1 however will not go away!
 
The nominations of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, the Partial Birth Abortion ban, raising broadcast decency fines, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. These are just a few of the issues we asked you to contact your legislators about -- and you responded in such strong numbers that our combined efforts were successful.

Now the liberal leadership in the U.S. Senate seeks to silence groups like the Family Research Council from informing you on the issues. Included in S. 1, the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007, is a provision that seeks to establish, for the first time, federal regulation of grassroots activity that is intended to encourage members of the public to communicate with Members of Congress about pending legislative matters – so-called “grassroots lobbying.” This is a move to stop us from informing you about the issues you find important.

We don’t oppose legitimate proposals to address unethical actions by Members of Congress, congressional staff and lobbyists. But nothing in those misdeeds provides any justification whatever for the idea that Congress should regulate the constitutionally protected efforts of groups such as ours to alert citizens regarding legislative developments in Congress. The First Amendment protects our right to “petition the government.” This is the heart of our democracy.

Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT) introduced an amendment to S. 1 that would strip this abusive language from the bill. The Senator realized that just as it would be unconstitutional to monitor the press because of their contact with their readers, Congress has no business monitoring the motives of citizens who contact Washington to express their views. I ask you to contact your U.S. senators and let them know that you oppose the grassroots provisions in bills like S. 1, the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007.