Online Freedom of Speech Act

ONLINE FREEDOM OF SPEECH ACT -- (House of Representatives - November 02, 2005)

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Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let us do that. Let us defeat this now and send it to a rule. The gentleman from California's (Mr. Doolittle) idea of a substantive defense is maybe a tribute to the gallantry that he continues to exemplify long after it may have gone out of fashion. He says the reason this is a good idea is that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren) said so.

I highly esteem my colleague from California with whom I disagree in this case. But the notion that her imprimatur is in itself a substantive defense of failing to follow the regular procedure does not meet the argument.

Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I did opine at the hearings, since there was complete agreement among all of the Members present, that we did not want to regulate the Internet, that we might be able to take care of this on the suspension calendar.

And I never have felt so powerful in the minority as I do today.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, you said all of the Members there present. How many were there?

Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I was the only Democrat present.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, how many Republicans?

Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I do not remember.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, so apparently four or five Members have been able to do this. I will repeat that we have heard no substantive defense of why this came.

I would agree with what the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren) said, sometimes you do not know something is controversial; but once you learn that it is, then you have the regular procedure.

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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I understand the procedural objections to this, and certainly when I made the suggestion during our hearing that we could probably handle this on the suspension, I believed that was the case. Obviously, there is more controversy than I had believed at the time.

But I still believe that this bill is very much worth supporting, and I do support this bill. If I believed what the New York Times and the Washington Post said, I would indeed be concerned. I was a strong supporter of the bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. I signed the discharge petition.

I voted for it. I am glad it passed. I would note, however, that what the bill before us does today is really a lot more modest than the rhetoric would lead one to believe. It does not repeal section 441(b) of the act that prohibits contributions or expenditures by national banks, corporations, or labor organizations. And all of the hoo-rah-rah about soft money and corporate money, I am sure it is sincere, is simply, as a matter of law, incorrect.

What this bill would do would be to allow communications on the Internet to avoid the heavy hand of regulation. And I do believe that is important. Today, if a local candidate has a Web page and they decide to say something very positive about the election of their party's candidate for President, they have a problem under the FEC rule.

And if my Web site, Lofgren for Congress, links to Feinstein for Senate, I probably am violating the rules. And there is no need for that. We do not want the heavy regulatory load on the Internet, nor do we need to do it.

Under current law, unless we pass this exemption, Daily Chaos, which if they call me for a comment on a candidate and it was run on their daily Web site within the specified time, we might have an actual problem here unless they are entitled to the press exemption. It is not clear that they are.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important since the court was not sure what our intention was when we passed BCRA that we should make it clear that the Internet is not part of the public communications covered by the act.

I do believe that in coming from Silicon Valley, especially so, that the ability to use the new technology to promote the viewpoint of individuals is essential to the growth of democracy. We have seen ever-increasing numbers of people participate in elections.

I think part of the reason for that is the ability to use the Internet to communicate. We are concerned, and rightly so, about the cost of TV. It costs a huge amount of money to run TV ads. Well, the cost to send an e-mail is almost nothing. So the use of the Internet is a great democratizer; that is little ``d,'' not big. We need to make sure that communications using the Internet are protected.

Mr. Speaker, it is worth noting that what this bill will do would be to protect the technology, to protect the Internet itself. It would not reduce in any way the prohibitions found in 441(b) any more than a corporation could use its funds to buy lawn signs or political signs; they could not pay for ads either.

And so I do think that it is worth noting that for the record I would just like to say that in this case the bloggers have got it right. This bill will keep the FEC out of the business of regulating political speech on the Internet.

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