Say Anything Blog

The Franking Commission is the Congressional entity that regulates Congressional mailings.  Members of Congress are allowed a budget for mass mailings to inform their constituents. The Franking Commission ensures that this isn’t abused for things like campaign fundraising, etc.

Today comes news that said Franking Commission will not be allowing Republicans to refer to the Obama/Democrat plans for a government-run health care plan as a government-run health care plan.  Instead, they must use the Democrat euphemism for their government-run health care plan.

Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), the secretary of the House Republican Conference and a former District Court Judge, is having his messages to constituents censored by Democrats on the Franking Commission.  Republicans are no longer allowed to use the words “government run health care” in the communications to their constituents.

Carter received an email from the Franking Commission informing him of the censorship. 

“It came to me from the Franking Commission and I have the email from the Franking Commission here if you’d like to see it,” Carter said.  “We held a telephone town-hall… When you hold telephone town-halls you have a recorded message that introduces the town-hall and the subject matter you’re going to be talking about.  You have to now submit that language to the Franking Commission.

“What we proposed as language was as follows, ‘House Democrats unveiled a government-run health care plan,’” Carter said.  “Our response from Franking was, ‘You cannot use that language.  You must use, ‘The House majority unveiled a public option health care plan,’ which is Pelosi-speak or ‘just last week the House majority unveiled a health care plan which I believe will cost taxpayers…’”

So who made this call on the language?  Why, the majority Democrats of course:

A highly-placed Hill staff source tells HUMAN EVENTS this is the new policy being enforced by Democrats.  Republicans will be forced to use the Democrats’ version of language describing their attempted government takeover of healthcare on their official communications with their constituents or they will have to pay for the postage personally.

You gotta love that Democrat spirit of bipartisanship and debate.  Republicans can have their say as long as they say what the Democrats tell them to say.