GOP emphasizes safeguarding political speech in US elections.

Republicans Highlight Importance of Political Speech and Election Confidence

Chair and Wisconsin GOP Rep. Bryan Steil

Republicans on the Committee on House Administration held a hearing Thursday to emphasize the significance of political speech and Americans’ confidence in U.S. elections. Chair and Wisconsin GOP Rep. Bryan Steil stated that the First Amendment has been under attack through the use of misinformation czars and cancel culture in our highly politicized climate. Steil cited the IRS’s targeting of conservative organizations during the Obama administration as an example of this attack.

Steil is focused on introducing the American Confidence in Elections Act (ACE Act) to uphold the First Amendment and boost voter confidence in elections. According to Steil, the bill would prohibit the IRS and any other federal agency from asking for an organization’s donor list, creating ad-hoc standards, and applying them to ideologically opposed groups.

Harmeet Dhillon

The House Admin Committee heard from several witnesses during Thursday’s hearing, including Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer and Republican National Committeewoman. Dhillon discussed the “coordinated efforts” between the federal government and private actors to influence the outcome of elections, specifically the “expanding government efforts to censor core political speech online” and “increasing use of private funds to run public election operations.”

Dhillon testified about the concerning nature of “Zuckbucks.” During the 2020 election, nonprofits such as the Center for Tech and Civic Life received hundreds of millions of dollars from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. These “Zuckbucks” were poured into local election offices in battleground states around the country to change how elections were administered, such as by expanding unsupervised election protocols like mail-in voting and the use of ballot drop boxes.

“Distrust in elections is not a partisan issue. Both Republicans and Democrats have expressed a historic level of distrust in our elections, and I hope that a renewed commitment by Congress to protecting freedom of speech in elections will help alleviate that trend and increase public confidence in America’s elections,” Dhillon said.

House Democrats

Predictably, House Democrats used Thursday’s hearing to play political games, attacking Republicans and spreading numerous falsehoods regarding conservative-led election integrity efforts.

Meanwhile, ranking member and New York Democrat Rep. Joe Morelle used his time to further the left’s ongoing smear campaign against originalist U.S. Supreme Court justices, specifically Associate Justice Clarence Thomas.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

Key Takeaways:

• Republicans on the Committee on House Administration held a hearing to emphasize the significance of political speech and Americans’ confidence in U.S. elections.
• Chair and Wisconsin GOP Rep. Bryan Steil is focused on introducing the American Confidence in Elections Act (ACE Act) to uphold the First Amendment and boost voter confidence in elections.
• Harmeet Dhillon testified about the concerning nature of “Zuckbucks” and the coordinated efforts between the federal government and private actors to influence the outcome of elections.
• House Democrats used Thursday’s hearing to play political games, attacking Republicans and spreading numerous falsehoods regarding conservative-led election integrity efforts.