Today in Washington, D.C. - July 11, 2014
The House reconvened today at 9 AM. They adjourned at 1:09 PM. The next meeting is scheduled for 12PM on Monday.
Today they took up and passed 258 to 160 H.R. 4718 — "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify and make permanent bonus depreciation."

The House also passed by voice vote H. Res. 657 — "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding United States support for the State of Israel as it defends itself against unprovoked rocket attacks from the Hamas terrorist organization."

Yesterday, the House passed H.R. 4923 (253-170) — "Making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes."

The Senate is not in session today and will reconvene at 2 PM Monday. Yesterday, after blocking all amendments yet again, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance S. 2363, the sportsmen’s bill, by a vote of 41-56. Also yesterday, the Senate voted 75-22 to confirm Shaun Donovan to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The Washington Times writes today, “The Senate Judiciary Committee took the first step Thursday toward repealing part of the First Amendment, giving an early OK to a new amendment that would give government the power to put strict limits on all political campaign spending. The 10-8 party-line vote sends the amendment to the full Senate, where Democrats are likely to try to force a vote this month, as one of a number of politically charged issues they want to hold votes on before Congress takes a month-long summer vacation in August. . . . If ratified, the new amendment would give Congress the power to ban campaign spending altogether, and would specifically target the 2010 Citizens United decision that freed interest groups to run ads. ‘We can’t fail to act,’ said Sen. Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat and an author of the new proposal. ‘I want to restore the previous balance.’ He acknowledged that amending the First Amendment was ‘arguably extreme’ but said the court decisions have forced Congress to this point. . . . The amendment Democrats are pursuing is broad. If ratified, the amendment would let federal and state governments set limits on how much money could be contributed to campaigns, spent by candidates or raised and spent by outside interest groups such as the National Rifle Association or the Sierra Club.”

Amazingly, even Democrats acknowledge that their drive to gut part of the Bill of Rights is “arguably extreme,” as Sen. Coons said. Yet, none of them have shown any restraint or a hint of embarrassment in suggesting they know better than our Founders did about how the Constitution should treat political speech.

How absurd has this obsession of Democrats with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which reaffirmed the protections of political speech in the First Amendment, gotten? During the markup in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) offered the text of the First Amendment as substitute for the Democrats’ proposal. The Democrats on the committee all voted against it.

After Democrats rejected Sen. Cruz’ amendment, they passed their proposed constitutional amendment on a party line vote. Following the vote, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Democrats for their radical proposal: “Washington Democrats have shown time and again how determined they are to shut down the voices of anyone who has a different point of view. Today, this determination extended to voting against the text of the First Amendment itself. Washington Democrats seem to forget that the First Amendment is about empowering the people, not the government, but the proposed Democrat amendment has it backwards. It says that Congress and the states can abridge political speech—the speech that is at the very core of the First Amendment. But when it comes to free speech, we shouldn’t substitute the incumbent-protection desires of politicians for the protection the Constitution guarantees to all Americans.”

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, provides a chilling analysis of what the amendment would mean for organizations like the ACLU, the Sierra Club, the NRA and Planned Parenthood:
The proposed amendment would authorize Congress, states, and local governments to, for instance, (1) restrict what most newspapers publish, (2) restrict what most advocacy groups, such as the ACLU, the Sierra Club, and the NRA, say, (3) restrict what is said and done by most churches, and (4) seize the property of corporations without just compensation. (It might also allow restrictions on the speech of unions, depending on whether they are seen as “corporate entities.”)-------------------
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