Ted Cruz

But if the bill that is being considered were adopted, it would put us on that path, and I think that path would be profoundly unwise and would be inconsistent with the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

In my opinion, adopting mandatory Federal Government background checks for purely private transactions between law-abiding citizens puts us inexorably on the path to a push for a Federal registry.

But what is consequential is extending it to private sellers, not licensed dealers. Because the argument surely would be--if this bill passed, the argument would immediately become: Well, it cannot possibly be effective because we do not…

What is not the exact same is extending it to a private individual selling to another private individual.

Thank you both for your testimony today and thank you also for your service at a time of great risk throughout the world.

My office received the text of this bill at 2:25 a.m. on Wednesday, April 17th, five days ago.

Incentivizing private sector investment in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) is exactly what is needed to initiate and incubate needed competitive future strategic U.S. intermodal/multi-modal freight projects.

The bill introduced by you and Senator Rockefeller, the 'American Infrastructure Investment Fund Act' is, as I understand it, an important strategic legislative effort to establish a $5 billion fund that could provide incentives for…

The threat of retribution for political speech... is not hypothetical.

The examples you gave about the potential for partisan retribution are particularly chilling.

Now, Commissioner Smith, would you agree that that is their First Amendment right to do so that should be entirely protected under the Bill of Rights?

I think every one of them has a constitutional right to speak out in a democracy.

Preventing corruption and preventing bribery is an important governmental interest and deserves serious focus.

Now, you would certainly agree that there are limits--and I would think significant limits--to the theory that additional government information would be helpful for discovering crime, that that is a theory that has the potential to…

And that standard should obviously apply across the board, regardless of the partisan affiliation of the speaker or the person being praised or criticized.

Citizens United, the Supreme Court upheld a disclosure regime and found it fully consistent with the First Amendment.

But I am here to tell you that our primary purpose is to ensure that our campaign contribution limits are robustly enforced.

Does the Department believe the First Amendment protects a right to anonymous speech?

I think there is none more central to the core purposes of the First Amendment than political speech, than the ability of every American to speak up and express his or her views on the direction of this country.

I think that the public should be particularly skeptical when you have elected politicians of either party enacting rules limiting the ability of public citizens to criticize the behavior of their elected officials.

In my view, whenever Congress acts in the area of political speech, the touchstone for everything we do should be the First Amendment to the Constitution.

I think there are few areas that are more dangerous to have the government engaged in prior restraint or punishment after the fact for private citizens who would choose to speak out on politics.

I urge ObamaCare be repealed. I yield the floor. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Delaware.

Because, again, I think a demonstration that humanity can work together to go out there and do something incredible--changing the Solar System to prevent our planet from being hit is an incredible demonstration of science, technology…

I just want to thank all four of you for what I think has been a very interesting and productive hearing.