On the recordMarch 2, 2017
This amendment is unnecessary and confusing. As I am sure my colleague from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) knows, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. The First Amendment applies to everybody in this country. We couldn't write a law that infringes upon the First Amendment and have it withstand scrutiny by the Supreme Court or under the Constitution, and I certainly wouldn't support a law that did this. The underlying legislation is designed to stop public agencies from using your taxpayer dollars and my taxpayer dollars for promoting one side of an issue. It is not designed to chill any Federal employees of First Amendment rights. In fact, the Supreme Court, in 1994, in Waters v. Churchill, held that public employees do have a right to free speech. We are not going to be leaning over people's necks seeing what they are putting on their personal Twitter accounts, but we are going to say that, if you are a government agency spending taxpayer dollars to promote a point of view on something before your agency, that is a no-no. That is what this underlying legislation does. Ms. Jackson Lee's amendment is simply unnecessary because we can't suppress the First Amendment rights even if we want to. And we do not-- I say do not--ever want to violate the Constitution and interfere with people's First Amendment rights. And, listen, I agree with the underlying intent of my colleague's amendment. Simply, we can't do it.…
