Capitol Hill Briefing 

# A Skeptical Look at Grassroots Lobbying Disclosure 

##### Watch the Event 

[Download a Podcast of the Event (MP3)](https://cdn.cato.org/archive-2007/hba-03-09-07.mp3) 

Join the conversation on X using [\#CatoEvents](https://x.com/hashtag/CatoEvents). Follow [@CatoInstitute](https://x.com/catoinstitute) on X to get future event updates, live streams, and videos from the Cato Institute.

Date and Time 

March 9, 2007 1 - 2:30 PM EST 

Location 

B-340 Rayburn House Office Building 

Share This Event 

##### Featuring 

Featuring: **Marvin Johnson**, Legislative Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union; **Mark Fitzgibbons**, President, Corporate and Legal Affairs, AmericanTarget Advertising, Inc.; **Stephen Hoersting**, Executive Director, Center for Competitive Politics; and **John Samples**, Director, Center for Representative Government Cato Institute. 

The House of Representatives will soon consider proposed ethics regulation that requires disclosure of the people and funding involved in grassroots lobbying efforts. “Reform” organizations are pushing such mandatory disclosure by claiming that “this lobbying disclosure reform would not in any way restrict” political speech. That is not so. For over 60 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that stripping citizens of their rights to speak anonymously to each other about issues chills their rights of speech and association, and the Court has upheld such compelled disclosure only in narrow circumstances. Please join us for a discussion of the downside of this new effort to regulate political speech.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).