Why NRLC Strongly Opposes McCain-Feingold and Shays-Meehan Bills.(National Right to Life Committee's Douglas Johnson addresses Coalition Press Conference for Free Speech About Politicians)(Brief Article)

Editor's note. The following is a statement delivered by NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson at a Coalition Press Conference for Free Speech About Politicians.

The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) is a federation of 50 state right-to-life organizations. We represent millions of Americans who believe that protection of innocent human life is a paramount public policy issue. Few of them have great financial resources, but they pool their efforts through our organizational structure, exercising their First Amendment right to associate.

I will briefly illustrate why we strongly oppose both the McCain-Feingold bill and the Shays-Meehan bill, and why we will again include roll calls on these measures in our congressional scorecards for this Congress. You can find far more extensive information on our objections to these bills on our web site at www.nrlc.org, under "Federal Legislation: Free Speech and Campaign Finance Reform."

These bills are loaded with "speech traps" - - that is, provisions that are carefully crafted to do two things: One, disrupt our ability to inform like-minded citizens regarding what their elected officials are doing, and two, greatly impede our ability to effectively communicate with elected representatives on our members' behalf.

Press stories on the McCain-Feingold bill often refer to the provision that restricts ads on radio or TV that even mention the name of a member of Congress or other "candidate" for at least four months during each even-numbered year. It is often stated, erroneously, that the bill merely requires "disclosure" of who is paying for such ads. In reality, this provision completely prohibits many organizations from sponsoring such politician-mentioning ads, and allows other groups to do so only under a host of restrictions that are intended to greatly reduce the amount of commentary regarding the activity of incumbent members of Congress.

But the bill contains other seldom-reported restrictions on free speech about politicians that are more far reaching. Consider, for example, the McCain-Feingold bill's restrictions (in Section 214) on communications that are deemed to be "of value" to a federal politician. This restriction applies all year round, and it applies to all communication media, including mailings.

This sweeping restriction is directly linked to the provision of the bill that most egregiously attacks our right to represent our members to their elected officials, which is the extremely expansive redefinition of "coordinated activity." If would be virtually impossible for issue-oriented groups that communicate ...