Richardcyoung.com

The Online Home of Author and Investor, Dick Young

  • Home
  • How We Are Different
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • Your Survival Guy
  • The Great Reset
  • COVID-19
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • The Swiss Way
  • Dick Young
  • Debbie Young
  • Key West
  • Paris
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool

Barring Former Lobbyists Violates the 1st Amendment

June 6, 2019 By Debbie Young

Sen Ted Cruz (TX) questions the panel as United States Border Patrol Chief Carla L. Provost delivers testimony on immigration policy before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration, in Washington, D.C., Dec. 12, 2018. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Photo by Glenn Fawcett

Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) and Dem. Rep AOC are united in their disfavor of former members of Congress becoming lobbyists.

In a recent Gallup poll, the only group worse than Congress (20% approval rating) to the public was lobbyists (6%).

Kyle Sammin reports in The Federalist that the only other group outside of Congress that polled as less ethical were lobbyists.

Lobbyists Not Dissimilar to Lawyers

,,, the ones representing my interests are crusaders for justice, brave and honest men and women who boldly speak the truth to power. In our minds, it’s always the other guy’s lawyer or the other side’s lobbyist who give them all a bad name.

It’s not easy to think of lobbyists or congressmen as downtrodden people in need of protection. And it is easy to forget in the heat of battle that the rights protected in the Constitution are not just for the weak.

Even Lobbyists Are Protected Under the 1st

Under two sections of the 1st Amendment, the right to free speech and the right to petition the government for the redress of grievances are covered.

As a matter of basic free speech, the proposed ban is already a problem. What a lobbyist does is essentially free speech in action, and not just any speech but political speech, the sort of speech that is necessary for a self-governing people.

Companies, unions, and advocacy groups hire lobbyists to talk to government officials about public policy.

Their goal is to convince those officials that their client’s view of things is correct, and that some law should be altered (or not altered) in accordance with that view.

If rights are guaranteed by the Constitution, limiting them requires a constitutional amendment. The Democrats acknowledged this when they voted (unsuccessfully) to reduce the free speech and free press protections of the First Amendment in order to overturn Citizens United v. FEC, a 2010 censorship case. Reducing the right to petition the government would require the same effort. Fortunately, respect for the Bill of Rights has become sufficiently ingrained in our culture that the thought of repealing it, even in part, gives most Americans pause.

Two Classes of Americans?

Limiting those rights in the way Ocasio-Cortez and Cruz propose is especially troublesome because it creates two classes of Americans: one who may petition the government, and one who may not. We have seen examples of this kind of thinking before, but none have made their way into law.

It brings to mind the Eighteenth Amendment, which allowed Congress to ban alcohol, and the Volstead Act, which actually banned it. The wording of the amendment is simple, the legislation that followed was more complex. Exceptions were made, loopholes exploited, and enforcement was nearly impossible. To the extent it was enforced, the Volstead Act created the first stirrings of the big government police state that we now see spread to other areas of the law.

Do Americans want snoops and spies following ex-congressmen to meetings, listening to phone calls, reading emails? The would-be Ocasio-Cortez-Cruz Act would require such activities.

The disclosures required by current law (the Lobbying Disclosure Act), passed in 1995, are a much better solution. People should be allowed to talk about whatever they want.

Read more here.

If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.

Related Posts

  • Former Supreme Court Justice Takes Aim at Second Amendment
  • Clinton Slams the Second Amendment
  • The Truth About the Second Amendment
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Debbie Young
Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.
Latest posts by Debbie Young (see all)
  • EVs and Human Trafficking/Modern Slavery - February 3, 2023
  • Breaking News: Reform at New College, Sarasota, Florida - February 2, 2023
  • Oh Yes! It Can Get Worse - February 1, 2023

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • Victor Davis Hanson: How to Bust DC’s Stronghold
  • DONBAS: Russian Tanks Face Gauntlet of Death from Javelin Wielding Ukrainians
  • Meet Me at Freddy’s June 2022
  • What’s the Best Survival Currency?
  • What Do You Know About Rho-Kinase?
  • Tom Brady Is Proof You Shouldn’t Retire if You Still Love Your Work
  • Your Survival Guy’s 2022 Super States: #1 New Hampshire
  • YOU DESERVE FREEDOM: Your Hard Work Will Make It Happen
  • My Key West Garden Office
  • Gold/Silver Coins No Longer Allowed in Safe Deposit Boxes

Our Most Popular Posts

  • Will Western Tanks Be a Game Changer in Ukraine?
  • Warren Miller: If You Don’t Do It This Year, You’ll Be…
  • Europe Should Protect Itself
  • “I Will Veto Everything They Send Me”
  • How to Fight Wokism Idiocy
  • US Debt Now Exceeds Annual GDP?
  • The Neocon Russia-Hoaxers of Hamilton 68 Must Be Held Accountable
  • What Kind of Life Are You Investing For?
  • Why Don’t These Mayors Seem to Care?
  • SEN. KENNEDY: This Is How to Fix Biden's Border Disaster

Disclosure

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Your Retirement Life: Adventure Awaits
  • UK Takes Aim at the Cryptocurrency Industry
  • Early Advice from Her Dad on Tipping at Charlie Trotter’s
  • Do You Trust This Rally?
  • Reagan’s America Remembered by Your Survival Guy and More
  • What Happens if the “Fed Put” Is Over for Good?
  • Tom Brady Retires, Again. Should You?
  • What Kind of Life Are You Investing For?
  • Warren Miller: If You Don’t Do It This Year, You’ll Be…
  • Are the Realists Winning the Debate over the Future of EVs?

RSS Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • Your Retirement Life: Adventure Awaits
  • Zumwalt-Class Guided Missile Destroyers to Get Hypersonic Weapons
  • Early Advice from Her Dad on Tipping at Charlie Trotter’s
  • Treasury Bonds Ready to Rock and Roll
  • Survive and Thrive February 2023: 4 Life Changing Words: “You Should Try This”
  • Tom Brady Retires, Again. Should You?
  • Reagan’s America Remembered by Your Survival Guy and More
  • America’s Unprecedented Debt Problem
  • Iran’s Ballistic Missiles Could Give Russia the Edge in Ukraine
  • What Kind of Life Are You Investing For?

EVs and Human Trafficking/Modern Slavery

USA and Russia: A Global War for Resources?

TERROR TACTICS: Globalists Use Fear to Demand Compliance

Your Retirement Life: Adventure Awaits

Are Flights About to Get MORE Expensive?

Dick Young: Learn from Hillsdale College Online

Copyright © 2023 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives