David Skaggs: “continuing my reservation, I appreciate the validity of all of the points the gentleman has just made, but I think he…”

“continuing my reservation, I appreciate the validity of all of the points the gentleman has just made, but I think he draws the boundaries a bit narrowly on the organizations in this country that have legitimate reason to be concerned. As it happens Blue Cross/Blue Shield is in a position to follow legislation here very closely. They did that. Their lawyers and lobbyists were able to identify this problem very quickly. But we are realizing the consequences of legislating in haste and without appropriate hearings and examination of consequences with regard to section 18 of the Lobbying Act, which was added in the Senate without any hearings and, even as it was working its way through the process, realized it was going to have unintended and unfortunate consequences. We only are awaiting the further experience of organizations like the National Association of Counties, the National Rifle Association, which I believe has contracts or grants from the Federal Government, and some of their activities, to see exactly how intrusive and violative of the rates of other 501(c)(4) organizations to participate fully in the political life of the country. So it will not just be that nicely drawn narrow category the gentleman identified, but I think we need to be concerned more broadly than that.”