DISCLOSE my ass!

Congressman Tom Price has a piece about HR 5175, the so-called DISCLOSE Act. This is the Democrats’ retaliation for the Citizens United case, which ruled that there is still a First Amendment right to produce political films and held McCain-Feingold unconstitutional.
Apparently, though, they want to get tough on bloggers and make them register and fill out disclosure forms, pay fees, and have their speech generally restricted:

Under the DISCLOSE Act, certain incorporated entities would be restricted in how they can exercise their free speech rights. There is an exemption for some in the media sphere like newspapers, TV news, and the like. However, there is one driving force in today’s public debate that is NOT exempt. Bloggers will not have the same exemption provided to other media sources. Never mind that the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Citizens United case stated, “Differential treatment of media corporations and other corporations cannot be squared with the First Amendment.”
For many bloggers to exercise their free speech rights, they would have to jump through the same onerous new hoops as many businesses, nonprofit groups, and even such threats to democracy as your local chamber of commerce. If this sounds like an absurd overreach by one party in power, I invite you to take a look at their government takeover of health care, taxpayer-funded bailouts, and general hostility to private sector economic growth.

I’ll tell you how I’ll deal with it if it passes. I will simply defy it. I will refuse to register with or disclose anything to any government board or entity. So, I am sure, will countless other bloggers. The massive resulting civil disobedience would cause them to either back down or look ridiculous, and if they tried actually enforcing this nonsense they’d look even more ridiculous.
But in a way, I hope they keep this sort of stuff up.
People tend to vote when they get pissed. Even little people. And they’re not going to be in the mood to vote for a party that is acting more and more like the party of Hugo Chavez.