Whew!

Good thing!  Given the amount of time Doug has been Politco-Prez blogging, I’d really hate to try to bail him out of jail: 

By a 55-43 vote on Thursday evening, the senators approved an amendment that dropped a controversial section dictating such regulations from a massive piece of federal lobbying legislation.

Seven Democrats joined 48 Republicans voting in favor of the amendment, which was proposed by Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah). No Republicans voted against the measure.

The Senate went on to vote 96-2 to approve the entire lobbying package, as amended, on Thursday night. The provision removed from that bill, Section 220, would have required certain people engaged in "grassroots lobbying" to register with the government or face civil and criminal penalties, including up to 10 years in prison.

What they are talking about, Section 220, would have included any blogger writing on a political topic with a readership of over 500 visitors would be subject to the same regulations as any of the high priced K Street lobbyists.

Bennett, the amendment’s sponsor, agreed. "Let’s reaffirm that the zenith of the Bill of Rights is free speech, the right to petition your government for redress of your grievances, and the right to peacefully assemble, all of which are involved in grassroots lobbying and none of which should be criminalized," the senator said in a floor speech introducing his proposal earlier this week.

A Republican finally doing something protect First Amendment rights…..Hey, Senator McCain, taking notes? 

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) made a last plea on Thursday to save Section 220, which he helped to craft. "This provision is intended to shed light on the dollars being spent by lobbyists," he said just before the vote on the amendment striking the language. "It in no way affects individuals who want to call or write their member of Congress."

Sorry, while I understand the "astroturf" bit, why does it seem that to punish the few that are actually causing the "problem", the many are held hostage?  Why make efforts to restrict the rights of the masses? 

The bill defined grassroots lobbying activity as a person engaging in "paid efforts" to encourage the "general public to communicate their own views on an issue to federal officials." That message would have to be sent to at least 500 individuals. The person would also have to spend or receive at least $25,000 related to his or her political efforts over any three-month period to trigger the registration requirements.

Now, GraniteGrok has never had a 500 unique hit day (hey, we’ve really only been open about 6 months – but over a week, we probably may have over 500 folks, so we’d hit that mark.  The second condition?  Not a chance….I still have to put ads up….the running of this blog comes out of my pocket (so far….er, hey Doug, we gotta talk there son)….

(DOUG COMMENT  Hey Skip, Don’t mislead the readers into thinking I don’t pay my way. What he means is that we need to start finding ways of, in the words of the public sector creatures, identifying new "revenue streams"… )

But I bet there are a few top tier bloggers who just might be hitting that threshold before one considers "patrons". 

Mark Fitzgibbons, who runs the GrassrootsFreedom.com advocacy site that opposed Section 220, argued that would mean a political blogger who raised $25,000 to run a political advertisement in The New York Times would be forced to register with the government.

The amendment’s passage drew applause from the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, one of the groups that opposed the effort. "I am pleased we were able to stop this breach of the First Amendment masquerading as lobbying reform," he said in a statement.