McCain teemed up with Feingold in 2002 to create the hideous campaign finance “reform” that muzzled any organization except for the liberal media in the days leading up to an election. The Gun Owners of America labeled this legislated rape of the First Amendment the “Incumbent Protection Act”.

Oh well, we said, Dubya won’t sign it.

But he did.

Oh well, we said, the Supreme Court can’t possible sanction it. It strikes at the very heart of the Bill of Rights.

But it did.

Now Johnny boy is at it again, this time with S. 2128, the “Lobbying Transparency and Accountability Act“.

After the Abramoff scandal, politicians are trying to show that they are doing something about corruption in and around our elected servants. But rather than reforming themselves (can you say “ethics”?) they are reforming lobbying efforts, including every grassroots organizations in existence today.

Tim Chapman says:

If McCain’s provision stays in tact, grassroots organizations would for the first time be subject to requirements and regulations that would devastate their ability to reach out to the general public. …

The way McCain’s provision is written, “grassroots lobbying” means “any attempt to influence the general public, or segments thereof, to engage in lobbying contacts whether or not those contacts were made on behalf of a client.” So grassroots organizations could be prohibited from reaching out to people not already included in their membership. This legislation would seriously curtail many groups’ abilities to get their message out and arguably infringes on their 1st Amendment free speech rights.

The Gun Owners of America explains:

Now with the Gag Act (S. 2128), McCain wants to target his wrath on groups like GOA — requiring them to register their “grassroots” communications and to file twice as many frivolous reports. …

For example, if we wanted to alert you to gun ban that is moving in our nation’s capital, we could first have to tell McCain (and all his other buddies in Congress) about what we’re planning to do, who we’re planning to alert (that is, grassroots folks like yourself), how much money we plan to spend, etc.

Because of Section 105 in this bill, everyone with whom GOA contracts to get the word out (advertisers, printers, etc.) could be required to tell Congress twenty days in advance about GOA’s public information campaign.

In effect, we would end up alerting Sarah Brady every time we plan to wage a grassroots campaign in opposition to gun control.

It is legislation like this that will keep me from ever voting for McCain for president. Should it come down to a choice between him and Hillery, I’ll be driven to vote Libertarian even though I swore that would never vote Libertarian at the federal level ever again. Or perhaps it’s time to check out the Constitution Party.

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Raping the Constitution.