| Posted: Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 | Comments (0)

The Right to Petition the Government

By: Steve Byas

Warren Burger, one-time Chief Justice of the United States, once asserted that, “There are many prices we pay for freedoms secured by the 1st Amendment.” My interpretation of his remark is that we may not always agree with what some individuals do with their constitutionally protected rights of free speech, free press, religious freedom and the like, but the alternative of discarding these rights is even worse.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press enjoy widespread popular support. And, I should add that freedom of the press is a right enjoyed by individual Americans, not just by the professional news of television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. In other words, you have as much right to type up your political views, run them off on a copy machine, and distribute them as the Gaylord family has to publish a newspaper. While these individual rights are constitutionally protected, they do face assault from legislation like McCain-Feingold, resurrection of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” and the like.

Most Americans also give lip service to the concept of religious freedom, although it, too, is under assault in much of American life.
The right to petition the government, on the other hand, doesn't even receive lip service from multitudes of Americans. It is regarded as something evil by far too many in our society.

A major part of the right to petition the government is the act of lobbying. Lobbying is almost universally decried, and we do sometimes “pay a price” for it, to borrow Burger’s phrase. What is the alternative? Should we allow Congress and the Oklahoma Legislature to act without the organized voice of concerned citizens?

Let’s take the National Rifle Association (NRA). It is a lobby. They hire professionals to persuade Congress and the legislatures of the several states to respect the Second Amendment. Without the NRA, and other gun-rights organizations (such as Gun Owners of America), the millions of Americans who believe in the right to keep and bear arms would be effectively neutralized. Too many lawmakers don't care what some individual gun owner thinks, but they tremble when they realize that the NRA speaks for millions.

Another example is the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) made up of hundreds of thousands of small businesses. How much clout would one small business owner have with the government? But, by joining together, the voice of independent business owners is magnified through NFIB. In 1993, when Hillary Clinton said that she could not be bothered by thousands of “undercapitalized” businesses that would fail should her nationalized health care proposal be enacted, NFIB took that quotation to its members. It is probable that NFIB’s lobbying efforts on behalf of small businesses threatened with their very existence killed Hillary Care.

Here in Oklahoma, we have inane proposals by some of our legislators that need to be killed. One legislator has proposed criminalizing libel, when it comes to the voting records of state legislators. While I strongly support the right of legislators and other political candidates to protect their reputations through civil libel actions, leaving it up to politicized district attorneys whether to file criminal charges will have a chilling effect upon political free speech. Besides, why should 149 legislators have special protection not enjoyed by the rest of Oklahomans?

Another poor proposal was to limit the raising of campaign funds, by legislative candidates, during the legislative session. The concern was that legislators might be influenced in their vote by the lure of campaign contributions. So, to “make it fair” for incumbents, the proposal was expanded to include challengers! Under this proposal, challengers who decided to run in February would have to wait until the high and mighty Legislature adjourned in May before commencing raising funds. How a challenger was supposed to print signs and literature during that time was not explained. I think that was the point.

It was even proposed that no fundraising events for the Oklahoma Legislature take place inside the bounds of Oklahoma County. I suppose crossing 89th Street into Cleveland County to the south will create a more honest politician.

The problem is not lobbying, or campaign contributions. The problem is that government is too involved in our lives and our businesses. If government did not impose so many laws and burdens upon the private sector, then there would be little need for lobbyists.
Despite some problems associated with lobbying, it is a mark of a free society, just like campaign signs (despised by many other individuals). Can you imagine a Jewish Lobby in Nazi Germany in 1938? Can you imagine any kind of a lobbyist at all under Hitler’s regime? What would Joe Stalin, or Fidel Castro think about campaign signs for their opponents? Every fall of each election year, I drive around and look at campaign signs in yards, in vacant lots, and elsewhere, and think it is a beautiful sight. I like trees, but you can have a tree in a free country or under a totalitarian dictatorship. Campaign signs do not exist in dictatorships (except maybe for the ruling party).

When citizens of like mind join together, and send representatives to the Congress and the Oklahoma Legislature to champion their cause, it is an action that could only happen in a free country.

The alternative is to leave Congress and the Oklahoma Legislature to do as they think best, without our input. After all, many in the legislative branch would prefer not to be bothered as they place more taxes and more regulations into our lives.

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