John Doolittle: “also the requirement in Shays-Meehan is that the publication must contain, ``no words that in context have no reasonable…”

“also the requirement in Shays-Meehan is that the publication must contain, ``no words that in context have no reasonable meaning other than to urge the election or defeat of one or more clearly identified candidates.'' See, this is the inference they are talking about here where whatever inference may be drawn as to its intent and meaning. All of a sudden a Federal bureaucratic czar is going to determine whether or not what citizens have said in their voter guide fell within the law or outside the law. It chills the speech. Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues to just think of this. Any organization that wants to distribute a voter guide, such as the Christian Coalition, such as National Right to Life, such as, I think the Abortion Rights Action League does them, any organization is now going to have to have in the back of its mind, and in its bank account, a half-million dollars, knowing that they will then be prepared to withstand a prosecution by the Federal bureaucratic czar who may determine that through the inference and so forth of the words, that the words fell within the scope of the Shays-Meehan law and, therefore, can be punished. Now, the First Amendment of course would never allow this. But as we all know, when we have statutes that infringe on the Constitution, the only way to deal with that problem is to go through the extremely time-consuming and costly litigation process. So this puts every issue advocacy group in the country in jeopardy.”