In a fundraising email today, FRC Action — the Family Research Council’s political arm — announced that it is “working closely with Senator Ted Cruz to take the lead” in opposing a proposed constitutional amendment to roll back Citizens United and related Supreme Court rulings that struck down federal campaign finance rules.
FRC president Tony Perkins has also picked up Cruz’s talking points about the subject, claiming in the email that an amendment restoring the power of Congress to regulate election spending would “scrap” the First Amendment and ultimately allow liberals to “quash our freedom of speech; to silence our calls for liberty and self-government; to muzzle the Christian viewpoint; to make the debate totally one-sided; to brainwash the next generation into believing that this is how it should be.”
In reality, the amendment would return to Congress and state governments the ability to place reasonable regulations on campaign spending, a power they had until very recently.
I thought I’d seen it all.
I thought the First Amendment was settled. I thought freedom of speech — the fundamental bulwark of liberty at the very heart of our republic — was so basic to our American way of life, no liberal would have the audacity to suggest scrapping it.
But I was wrong.
…
It’s utterly outrageous to suggest gutting the First Amendment. It is critically important to our national life. Freedom of speech, especially political speech, sets us apart from most other countries in the world. It keeps liberty alive.
It seems Democrats want “free speech” to consist only of government-authorized speech.
They claim they want to cut back on the influence of “special interests” in election campaigns. But of course, the “special interests” they want to silence are organizations like FRC Action. They want to muzzle you and me.
This is not about “election accountability.” This is a naked power grab.
This amendment to the Constitution would give the foxes the keys to the henhouse. Those in power — whom FRC Action is committed to holding accountable — would now have the ability to silence us, to gag us, to strip us of our right to fully engage in the political process.
Interestingly, if such a far-fetched alteration of our Constitution were to actually take place, there is a particularly strong group that would be protected — the press! Democrats’ liberal allies in the mainstream media would retain their free political speech, while organizations like FRC Action would lose theirs.
Maybe you’re thinking: they can’t seriously think such a proposal would make it through Congress. And you would be right: they don’t.
This is a bald-faced tactic for firing up the Democrats’ base — to get more liberal voters to swarm the polls in the midterm elections this November.
But if we remain silent, if we simply sit and roll our eyes at the absurdity of it all . . . liberals in Congress will be emboldened to keep pushing in this deadly direction.
The Left would love nothing more than to quash our freedom of speech; to silence our calls for liberty and self-government; to muzzle the Christian viewpoint; to make the debate totally one-sided; to brainwash the next generation into believing that this is how it should be.
We’re working closely with Senator Ted Cruz to take the lead in exposing this outrage and in challenging any attempt to rewrite our Bill of Rights.
