The Constitution Project, a bipartisan watchdog group, named Rand Paul one of its annual “Constitutional Champions” last week.
In an op-ed in the Huffington Post, the organization’s president, Ginny Sloan, wrote that the award honors “individuals and organizations who have dedicated themselves to defending our Constitution and the principles it embodies.” Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) was this year’s other recipient.
Sloan cited Paul and Leahy’s co-sponsorship of the Justice Safety Valve act, which would enable judges to bypass mandatory minimum sentences, as one example of their work to preserve the Constitution. “Both have worked doggedly to build bipartisan consensus on a number of critical constitutional issues,” she wrote.
Sloan also praised their work on privacy rights, particularly Paul’s legislation to rein in NSA spying and his refusal to vote for extending the Patriot Act, as well as his calls for congressional authorization of military action against ISIS.
The group will be giving a separate award to Twitter, for suing the government over blocking their efforts at publishing a transparency report on national security information requests. In Twitter’s filing, they charged that the government “engages in extensive but incomplete speech about the scope of its national security surveillance activities” but would not allow companies to add “their own informed perspective.”
Leahy and Paul will receive their awards at the group’s annual gala later this month. Last year the award honored the head of the Associated Press, among others.
