On the recordSeptember 10, 2014
I rise today to talk about our constitutional amendment. I think we have had a very good debate this week--an overdue debate. I want to thank my colleagues for coming to the floor and for speaking out. But there have also been many misrepresentations by the other side about what our constitutional amendment would do. Michael Keegan, the President of People for the American Way, wrote a piece in the Huffington Post yesterday. He summed up the debate from the other side of the aisle quite well. He said, ``a good rule of thumb in politics is that the scarier someone sounds, the more you should doubt what they're saying.'' We heard some scary things in the last couple of days. Lorne Michaels is going to jail. And he is sharing a cell with a little old lady who put up a $5 political yard sign. Books and movies are banned. The NAACP, Sierra Club, and moveon.org have been prohibited from speaking about politics--scary stuff but none of it is true. Erwin Chemerinsky, a great constitutional scholar, recently wrote an op-ed in the Hill, rebutting many of the claims we have heard. He wrote: The amendment-- He is talking about our constitutional amendment here. --gives no authority to the government to ban or limit anyone's speech. It provides the government no power to ``muzzle'' messages the government doesn't like.…
