[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 126 (Tuesday, August 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8135-H8136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      POLITICAL ADVOCACY REPORTING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to return for a few minutes to 
this 13-page piece of legislation that is buried in the Labor, Health, 
and Education appropriation bill that the House will be taking up 
shortly. It is labeled political advocacy, and it is really an 
incredible effort at speech control and reporting, all at the hands of 
this new majority that made such a big deal out of wanting a less 
intrusive Government.
  Well, let me just ask my colleagues to go through the painful 
exercise of actually reading this legislative provision in an 
appropriations bill. It is an absolutely chilling experience when you 
realize that this Rube Goldberg contraption that has been invented in 
order to get at the question of Federal funds being used to persuade 
Congress about public policy, how vast and really incredibly intrusive 
into civil liberties a proposal this is.
  I spent some time yesterday explaining some of the people who would 
be covered as, quote, grantees under this legislative provision in the 
appropriations bill. I hope you will pay some attention to this; your 
constituents are absolutely going to hate this bill if it were to 
become law.
  For instance, disaster victims getting emergency aid from FEMA would 
be a grantee, and I will tell you in a minute what grantees have to go 
through, researchers getting NSF research grants, probably because the 
definitions are so broad including anything of value coming from the 
Federal Government, a farmer getting emergency livestock feed in a 
major snowstorm, irrigators receiving subsidized Bureau of Reclamation 
water, and it probably even includes intangibles, so a broadcaster 
getting an FCC license would probably be a grantee under the provisions 
of this proposal, as, for instance, would many organizations, maybe 
your local church or YMCA, YWCA, if you are running a low-income child 
care program. With a Federal grant you would be brought into the 
provisions of this incredible proposal.
  Now what happens to those who are covered? Let me just take a minute 
to walk you through what would happen to one very typical, if 
hypothetical, example, namely a pregnant woman or nursing woman getting 
food
 vouchers under the Women, Infants and Children's program. Let us just 
consider the example:

  We will call her Sally. She will be required to follow ``generally 
accepted accounting principles in keeping books and records,'' about 
the number and the value of the assistance that she is receiving under 
the WIC program. She would be required to file with the Department of 
Agriculture by the end of each calendar year a certified report on a 
standard form provided by your friendly Federal Government with her 
name and her ID number, description of the purposes that she put her 
WIC grant to, a list of all the Federal, State or local government 
agencies involved in administering the WIC program, and here is the 
real hooker in this, a description of her acts of, ``political 
advocacy,'' which is defined all encompassingly to include, for 
instance, any attempt to influence any Federal, State, or local 
government action, including any attempt to affect the opinions of the 
general public or any part of the public about any government action. 
This would include, for instance, Sally's coming to one of your town 
meetings and talking with her congressman or congresswoman, writing a 
letter to the editor about some issue of public policy pending in her 
community.
  This political advocacy activity would also include ``participating 
in any political campaign of any candidate for public office,'' 
Federal, State, or local. So, marching in a candidate's parade, for 
instance, would be a political advocacy activity that a WIC grantee 
would have to report to the Department of Agriculture.

                              {time}  1715

  It goes on and on and on. This would create, in some computer in 
Washington, DC, a master list of all political advocacy activities 
carried on by all Federal grantees around the country. Each Department 
would have to get these reports annually certified, subject to audit, 
subject to challenge, 

[[Page H8136]]

from all of their grantees, bring them together, and every year send 
their reports to the Bureau of the Census, which would then, in turn, 
pull all of these together to constitute a national database of 
political activities maintained under the force of Federal law by the 
Federal Government.
  Mr. Chairman, why anyone that is interested in a smaller Government, 
much less in civil liberties, much less in the protections of the first 
amendment to the United States Constitution, would consider for a 
second endorsing this chilling Orwellian notion is beyond me, but it 
was stuck, buried, in the end of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and 
Human Services, and Education appropriations bill that will be before 
the House shortly.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope all of my colleagues will take just a few minutes 
to read through this provision and understand exactly what it is going 
to mean. It is going to mean a lot in the lives of most Americans. It 
is an appalling exercise of overreach by the Federal Government. We 
should support the amendment that I will offer on the floor to strike 
it from the bill.


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