This is getting interesting. Mark Fitzgibbons of the Free Speech Coalition has been poring over the grassroots lobbying proposal being developed for incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by Public Citizen’s Joan Claybroo. The more he looks, the more disturbing elements Fitzgibbons finds in the Pelosi-Claybrook effort to throttle grassroots lobbying by every day citizens while giving the pin-striped professional Washington lobbyists a huge loophole. Here’s Fitzgibbons most recent response to Claybrook, and it is well-worth reading and copying to every person you know. It’s only yours and their freedom of speech at stake in this: December 30, 2006 Ms. Joan Claybrook President Public Citizen 215 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Washington, DC 20003 Re: More Devil in Details of Public Citizen s Attempt To Silence Grassroots Critics Dear Ms. Claybrook: Public Citizen s website acknowledges that your organization has been planning to regulate grassroots critics since at least 2001. Please, therefore, forgive those of us who are just now catching the many devils in the details of the bill you acknowledge to be crafting for Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi based on her 2006 bill. Your December 21 letter to Free Speech Coalition, Inc. complains that businesses and other wealthy special interest groups usemisleading messages in their policy communications to the general public. Public Citizen s descriptions of, and urgings of public support for, your bill are certainly no exception. Since most citizens probably are not as familiar with the existing lobbying disclosure law as you are, I ll use a relatively simple example for illustration purposes. I use a grassroots cause with which I do not personally agree to emphasize my point. A small nonprofit organization consisting of three paid employees has one issue, and that is to increase the corporate income tax. They rely entirely on small-dollar contributions from the general public, none of which exceeds $500. They send a letter to two United States senators urging an increase in the corporate income tax. They next email more than 500 citizens explaining their reasons for supporting an increase in the corporate income tax, and suggest that citizens contact their Members of Congress. This little grassroots organization would, under your bill, be required to register and report quarterly to Congress under the lobbying disclosure law, identifying who they are, how much they spent, which members of Congress their efforts were directed to, and other information. Next, this grassroots organization has cobbled together enough money to hire a public relations agent to write and place two full-page ads in The Sunday New York Times. The ads simply say, Contact your representatives and tell them to increase the corporate income tax because corporations can afford it. The PR agent is retained to expend more than the dollar threshold of what your bill defines as a grassroots lobbying firm. The PR agent makes no contact with Congress, and spends less than 20 percent of his time writing and placing this simple ad, thus does not fit any of the criteria of a lobbyist. Nevertheless, the PR agent must also register with Congress under the lobbying disclosure law, reporting who his client is, which Members of Congress the effort is direct towards, and other information. One senator introduces a bill to increase the corporate income tax. All 500 of the Fortune 500 Companies decide to oppose the bill. Each of them hires a lobbyist, some of whom are former Members of Congress, agreeing to pay each lobbyist $1 million apiece. Each of the Fortune 500 Companies instructs their respective lobbyist to spend less than 20 percent of their time on this lobbying project, thereby avoiding the definition of lobbyist in 2 U.S.C. 1602(10). The lobbyists are given one instruction: tell Members that if they vote to increase the corporate income tax, they will never receive another dollar of support. So there is $500 million spent by corporations not reported. But it gets worse. Under the corporate loophole in your bill, corporations will be allowed to spend unlimited money communicating to their shareholders, employees and officers yet not report. The Fortune 500 Companies spend collectively tens of millions of dollars warning shareholders that an increase in the corporate income tax will result in smaller earnings, and that employees cannot expect salary increases if the bill passes. These unreported communication expenditures urge collectively millions of citizens to write Congress to oppose an increase in the corporate income tax. I can continue to provide examples of what damage your bill does. However, claims by Public Citizen and other Washington insiders that this grassroots bill levels the playing field for nonprofit organizations that engage in grassroots communications to the general public are simply not true. It is no wonder that K Street is silent about this. Very truly yours, Mark J. Fitzgibbons President of Corporate and Legal Affairs American Target Advertising, Inc. UPDATE: Don’t miss the Free Speech Coalition’s new website, which you can find here. Pelosi Grassroots lobbying Claybrook First Amendment Free Speech
