House Speaker Paul Ryan plans to put some teeth in the rule against recording devices on the House floor, after Democrats defied the ban to broadcast a ‘sit-in’ over gun control in June.
Republican leaders have proposed empowering the House Sergeant-at-Arms to impose a maximum fine of $2,500 on lawmakers who use the recording devices. House Democrats decried the proposal as “a modern day and unconstitutional gag rule,” but Republicans maintain it’s simply an enforcement mechanism for the existing House rule banning the use of recording devices on the floor.
“These changes will help ensure that order and decorum are preserved in the House of Representatives so lawmakers can do the people’s work,” AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan, told the Washington Examiner.
The fine, which would only be levied for future violations of House rules, is Ryan’s means of discouraging Democrats from repeating their tactic of taking over the House floor in order to demand votes on gun control bills that Republicans, who have a majority of votes in the House, were unwilling to consider. “We will occupy this floor!” Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., called out in June, as his colleagues proceeded to sit down on the House floor in order to prevent Ryan from proceeding with votes on other legislation.
Democrats accused GOP leaders of planning an unconstitutional crackdown on their speech rights.
“This unprecedented rule change, which appears to violate several fundamental constitutional protections, clearly is intended to undermine the rights of members in the minority to freely express their views on the House floor, which is a critical means by which members communicate to the American public,” Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and three other House Democrats said Friday.
The use of recording devices was critical to the Democrats who managed the sit-in. Republicans gaveled out and turned off the C-SPAN cameras, which are always off when the House is out, in order to cut off the view of the protest. Democrats used social media programs to stream video of the protest, thereby providing media outlets and supporters on social media with the ability to follow the sit-in.
The use of those recording devices violated a House rule that was passed in 2000, when Republicans controlled the chamber, and modified by Democrats in 2009. The stipulates an “absolute prohibition … against the use of mobile electronic devices that impair decorum… No device may be used for still photography or for audio or video recording.”
Conyers — along with New York Reps. Louise Slaughter and Jerrold Nadler and Tennessee’s Steve Cohen — complained that the rule creating the fine would allow a “protocol official” to punish an elected official, adding that the proposed rule doesn’t have due process protections for lawmakers accused of using recording devices on the floor. And they argued that the “threat of this fine” for recording audio and video on the House floor would discourage them from voicing their opinions.
“Even the threat of this fine would have a chilling effect on the right of members to express their views on the House floor, which is one of the most fundamental protections under the Constitution’s speech or debate clause as well as the First Amendment,” the four Democrats said.
