Anti-Free Speech

Floor Speech

Mr. McCONNELL. I wish to take a moment to address anti-free speech legislation the Obama administration has made a priority for this term. It is a regulation that comes in the wake of an unprecedented IRS attack on Americans' civil liberties and it represents a direct assault on the First Amendment.

First, let's be clear. This is not some partisan issue. Right across the political spectrum the American people agree this is a terrible idea. That is probably why it has generated more public backlash than any similar regulation in our entire lifetime.

Americans on the left hate it. Americans on the right hate it. Unions, business groups, environmentalists, conservatives, the ACLU, all of them have expressed concern. It is very rare to see a coalition that broad agree on anything in this town. Yet it is easy to see why Americans would be so united in opposition to this regulation.

The First Amendment exists to protect political speech. That was what the Founders had in mind when they wrote First Amendment political speech. The government should be doing everything it can to protect that right, not hurt it.

That is why we saw a record number of Americans register their complaints with the IRS. In fact, there were more than 140,000, comments--140,000 comments--on this regulation, which I hear is the highest number ever received in the agency's entire history.

And let's not forget the IRS has a long way to go to regain public trust these days. Too many Americans look at the agency and see an instrument of political harassment rather than a bureau of tax processors. So if the agency wants to regain trust and return to its true mission, then it simply has to get out of the speech regulation business altogether. The IRS needs to get out of the speech regulation business altogether, and the Obama administration can do that.

Look. The administration ran this idea up the flagpole. In the midst of a historic crisis of public confidence at the IRS, it decided to upend more than half a century of practice and rewrite the rules on how Americans could express themselves, how they could be heard. They asked for comments, and the American people let them know what they thought in over 140,000 comments, almost all of them in opposition.

This regulation needs to go. This regulation needs to go, and it needs to go now. It is in the administration's power to make that happen. All it has to do is to listen to the American people who are speaking out in record numbers--record numbers--and put an end for good to the idea that the law should be used to harm political enemies.

Let's protect the First Amendment and restore integrity to the IRS at the same time by withdrawing this awful regulation.

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