Tuesday on the Senate floor, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for wasting time on debating how to take away American’s right to free speech as guaranteed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Cruz said Reid refuses to debate the threat from ISIS, Putin and an unsecured border but instead will spend the entire week debating his attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s 2010’s Citizens United ruling with a proposed a constitutional amendment aimed at limiting the political spending of corporations.
Cruz said, “At a time of extraordinary challenges across the globe and here at home, we are not gathered in the United States Senate to discuss how to confront the threat of ISIS. We are not gathered in the United States senate to discuss how to prevent prevent Putin’s Russia from invading its neighbors. We’re not gathered in the United States senate today to discuss how to solve the humanitarian crisis at the border with some 90,000 unaccompanied children coming into the country this year. We’re not gathered in the United States Senate today to discuss how to bring back jobs and economic growth, how to correct the fact that the Obama economy has produced the lowest labor force participation since 1978.”
“Ninety-two million Americans not working today,” Cruz continued. “And we’re not gathered in the United States Senate to discuss how to stop the disaster that has been Obamacare, that has caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, to be forced into part-time work, to lose their health insurance, to lose their doctors and to see their premiums skyrocket. Instead, we are gathered today in the senate for a very different topic. The Majority Leader and the Democratic majority in this Senate have determined that the most important priority this senate has, which we are spending the entire week addressing, is the proposal of 49 Democrats to repeal the free speech provisions of the First Amendment.”
“That is not hyperbole. typically, when Americans hear that members of the United States Senate are proposing repealing the free speech protections of the First Amendment, the usual reaction is a gasp of disbelief,” he continued. “Could we really have entered a world so extreme that our common ground no longer even includes the First Amendment to the Constitution? The First Amendment protects our most foundational rights, and yet under the amendment we’re debating today that 49 democrarats have signed their name to, the First Amendment would in effect have crossed out the free speech. Why? Because 49 Democrats have cosponsored a constitutional amendment that is currently on the floor of the senate, being voted on this week, that would give congress blanket authority to regulate political speech. From the dawn of our republic, we have respected the rights of citizens to express their views. It is the right upon which every other civil liberty is predicated. But in theDemocratic senate of 2014, citizens’ free speech rights are tools for partisan warfare.”
“This proposal before the senate is bar none the most radical proposal that has been considered by the United States Senate in the time I have served. If this proposal were to pass, its effects would be breathtaking. it would be the most massive intrusion on civil liberties and expansion of federal government power in modern times.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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