Defeat of H.R. 1606

The Campaign Legal Center along with Common Cause, Democracy 21, League of Women Voters, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG worked successfully -- on very short notice -- in defeating H.R. 1606, introduced by Rep. Hensarling (R-TX), on the suspension calendar. By placing the bill under suspension of the rules, a two-thirds vote of those present was required and no amendments were allowed. If passed, H.R. 1606 would have opened a new loophole in the soft money ban Congress passed into law in 2002. Under the guise of protecting "grassroots political activity" on the Internet, this bill would have opened the floodgates to the same kind of corrupting, cash-for-access exchanges that were taking place between the political parties and big special interest contributors before Congress and the President rightly put a stop to the soft money system with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

Representatives Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Martin Meehan (D-MA) introduced H.R. 4194, the Internet Anti-Corruption and Free Speech Protection Act, on Tuesday as an alternative way to protect bloggers' rights to political speech on the internet, while at the same time keeping the internet free of corrupting soft money expenditures for political campaigns.

Click here to read a letter and fact sheet by the Legal Center.

Click here to read a fact sheet and clippings produced by Rep. Meehan's office.

Click here to read another fact sheet produced by Rep. Meehan's office.