David Skaggs: “one of the many, many virtues of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin is that it would strike from this…”

“one of the many, many virtues of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin is that it would strike from this bill the incredibly ill-conceived provision generally referred to as the Istook amendment, which attempts to control speech and political advocacy in this country. It is often described as if the only objective were to keep Federal funds from being used for Federal lobbying. That is already essentially against the law. This proposal would go far further than that innocent-sounding purpose and fundamentally put the Federal Government in the business of crippling the ability of anyone who is covered by this amendment to participate in the political life of this country. Mr. Chairman, if it were to become law, large numbers, probably millions of Americans, would end up having to file, or participate in the filing, if you can conceive of this of a certified annual report detailing their political activity. Incredible. The proponents of this amendment often trot out a picture of a pig eating Federal dollars. I guess that pig is supposed to represent farmers and small business people, the Girl Scouts, the Red Cross, the YMCA, the U.S. Catholic Conference, some of over 400 organizations that are opposing this provision.”