It was great last week that a majority of the Senate supported the amendment of Sen. Robert Bennett, R-UT, to strike the Senate Ethics bill’s provision adopting the Pelosi-Claybrook requirement that grassroots lobbying be regulated by the government via registration. But that victory for the First Amendment was not the last word. The provision is still very much alive because there still must be House action and a Senate-House conference committee. Don’t think the provision won’t reappear because it will. In the meantime, controversy has flared in the Blogosphere over whether bloggers would be required to register as lobbyists if the Pelosi-Claybrook provision becomes law. Grassroots Freedom’s Mark Fitzgibbons makes a persuasive case that the provision would cover bloggers if they write about an issue on their blog that they also express an opinion about in communications with Members of Congress. You can read Fitzgibbons’ case here. But Prof. Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA Law School and Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters blog, both of whom are members of The Examiner Blog Board of Contributors, claim there is no such threat to bloggers. You can read Bainbridge, who also links to Morrissey’s post, here. My view? I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know whether Fitzgibbons’ reading of the language is accurate or not, though on its face it seems to me to be quite reasonable. But the more important consideration to me remains this fact – the Pelosi-Claybrook grassroots lobbying provision is at the very least the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent. You can be sure that if the provision becomes law, it will be read and applied in the broadest manner possible by the bureaucrats at the Federal Election Commission and there will be efforts in Congress to expand the scope of the law. That is the nature of government – once it enters an arena of human activity, the inevitable tendency is to seek more and more power to regulate that activity. UPDATE: Brainbridge says Fitzgibbons’ reading is off-base The UCLA professor is having none of Fitzgibbons’ approach to the text of either the existing law on lobbying disclosure or that of section 220, the grassroots lobbying disclosure provision. I have a feeling there will be a response from Fitzgibbon. Free Speech First Amendment Pelosi Earmarks K Street Lobbyists Grassroots Lobbying/a> Congress
