What can powerless, concerned citizens do in response to President Trump’s move to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement?
Here’s a pretty good answer from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.:
If you haven’t joined an environmental group, join one. If your voice needs to be heard, get active. If you are a big corporation with good climate policies that has shied away from engaging politically, it’s time to engage.
Taken from his official statement on the withdrawal, Whitehouse describes exactly the type of activity the First Amendment was written to protect. When government takes action that citizens find objectionable, the First Amendment protects their right to organize, petition, and speak out. In other words, it protects the right to “get active.”
Unfortunately, Whitehouse has spent his political career promoting efforts to hamper just this sort of civic engagement.
He uses the megaphone that comes with his position of power to rail against the rights of advocacy groups that choose to respect the privacy of their donors. And he supports bills that would cripple all but the most well-funded groups.
Whitehouse has introduced the so-called ” DISCLOSE Act” multiple times now. DISCLOSE is a contrived acronym for “Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections.”
Whitehouse and his allies say this bill would increase transparency. But the “light” that would be cast would not shine on those in power, such as senators. We wouldn’t know anything about what groups or persons he meets with behind closed doors.
Rather, the bill targets citizen groups that seek to hold those in power accountable. Whitehouse would like us to believe that the legitimate interest in government transparency necessitates exposing the personal information of private citizens who choose to join groups and advocate for social change.
Disclosing the names, addresses, occupations, and employers of citizens who give to advocacy groups exposes people to potential intimidation and harassment. So if his bill became law, fewer are likely to want to join an environmental group. The loss of privacy increases the costs of civic engagement.
The laws drive up compliance costs for groups too. Disclosure laws are very complex. They require groups to file frequent, detailed reports to government agencies. To stay in compliance, groups must hire expensive lawyers and spend resources on exhaustive record-keeping. As a result, Whitehouse is promoting laws that would directly hinder citizens’ willingness and ability to “get active.”
The DISCLOSE Act is just one part of Whitehouse’s endless crusade against the free speech rights of groups he likes to call “dark money” organizations. The pejorative term “dark money” refers to money spent on speech by groups that do not have to publicly report the private information of their donors to the government.
One such “dark money” group is the Sierra Club. Among the most well-known environmental advocacy groups in the nation, it is presumably one of the groups Whitehouse would encourage concerned citizens to join.
The Sierra Club explicitly offers to protect the privacy of its donors, including corporate donors. So, it clearly has supporters who desire anonymity and with good reason. Surely, some of those supporters would choose not to donate if they no longer had this option.
Whitehouse’s call for increased political engagement from corporations highlights his apparent myopic view that the First Amendment only applies to advocacy he agrees with as well.
Whitehouse makes no attempt to hide his animus toward corporate political speech. He has repeatedly co-sponsored a constitutional amendment that, among other abominations it would do to the First Amendment, seeks to grant Congress unlimited power to prohibit any corporate entity from spending money on political speech.
No word on whether he favors an exception for corporations with “good” policies on climate change.
It is heartening to see that Whitehouse is now encouraging citizens (and corporations) to engage in political speech instead of yet again attempting to silence opposing viewpoints.
His statement demonstrates that he does indeed understand the value of First Amendment-protected advocacy. However, the statement is also an example of the far too common tendency among many politicians to view only friendly advocacy as legitimate.
The First Amendment protects the right of every American to privately support an environmental group. It also supports the right of every corporation to speak in opposition to the president’s actions regarding climate policy.
But Whitehouse must realize that the First Amendment also protects the right of citizens, nonprofit groups, and corporations to engage in political speech he opposes. In the end, his anti-speech objectives will harm the First Amendment rights of his allies as much as his opponents.
This post originally ran in The Washington Examiner on June 21th 2017.
