Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Elise Stefanik today voted to advance the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act (H.R. 140).
This bill expands the Hatch Act, the law prohibiting federal employees from engaging in political activities in their official capacity, to expressly prohibit those same federal employees from censoring lawful speech.
“The American people have witnessed the full weaponization of the corrupt FBI against the American people through its use of taxpayer dollars to censor free speech on social media,” Stefanik said. “In the face of this violation of Americans’ Constitutional rights, House Republicans are standing up for the First Amendment on behalf of the American patriots who have been unfairly censored. We are putting an end to this purely partisan government censorship.”
Specifically, the bill prohibits agency employees from using their official authority or resources to influence or coerce a private sector platform to censor, including to remove, suppress, restrict, or add disclaimers or alerts to, any lawful speech posted on its platform by a person or entity. It provides an exception for legitimate law enforcement activities reported to Congress for review.
Read the full bill here.
