Saying that a recent move by the NRA to forego further resistance to new campaign finance regulations (HR 5175) is “a political deal borne of self-interest,” the Gun Owners of America have sharply criticized the National Rifle Association. The dispute involves the “DISCLOSE Act,” a Democrat-sponsored move that would, according to GOA, “effectively neuter [a previous court decision that corporations cannot be prohibited from making independent candidate-related expenditures] by requiring the names of multiple donors to be recited in ads (thus shrinking the time spent on actual speech),” among other rules.
Central to GOA’s ire is that the NRA has managed to “carve out” an exemption for itself from the bill. The GOA and various Tea Party organizations, to name only a few, aren’t exempt, and thus their ability to engage in grassroots efforts for or against specific candidates is being infringed. Worse, according to the GOA, is the fact that the political maneuvering over the NRA’s exemption signals, wrongly, that the Bill of Rights is “subject to negotiation.”
The NRA’s Executive Director, Chris Cox, issued a statement in response that flatly denies these charges:
The NRA has never supported — nor would we ever support — any version of this bill… The restrictions in this bill should not apply to anyone or to any organization. My job is to ensure they don’t apply to the NRA and our members…
…The NRA is a single-issue organization made up of millions of individual members dedicated to protecting the Second Amendment. We do not represent the interests of other organizations. Nor do all groups fight all issues together…
Rather than focusing on opposing this bill, some have encouraged people to blame the NRA for this Congress’s unconstitutional attack on free speech. That’s a shame…
In other words, the position of the NRA is that it fought, and secured, an exemption from the bill in order to continue fighting for your Second Amendment rights. Other organizations that believe they, too, should be exempt are responsible for fighting their own battles.
This is not, indeed, support for the bill, but it does not constitute opposition to it either. While I can understand the position of the NRA in this matter, I think it’s short-sighted to believe your work as an advocacy group stops at the front door to your offices. A bill that affects other pro-liberty organizations is bad for the country and everyone in it, regardless of whether they have the power and the political acumen to remove themselves from the blast radius of the Democrats’ latest unconstitutional bombs.