Yesterday, TechDirt, one of the leading technology blogs, played a little defense on the debate about House Franking rules on the use of external sites.
Rep. John Culberson responded in the comments.
If the Ds rule change were in effect today, before I could post this, YOUR website/blog would have to be preapproved as complying with House rules, my post would require a disclaimer that it was "produced by a House office for official purposes," and the CONTENT of my post would have to preapproved by the House Franking Committee as complying with "existing content rules and regulations."
Now, TechDirt is correct that under the current rules, Culberson is not allowed to post this comment at all, but that is the problem. House Democrats are proposing a rule that does not solve the current problem in any meaningful way. Their solution would not allow members and staff to respond to blog posts in comments.
That’s objectively crazy. That’s why the Republican proposal should be adopted, not the luny Democratic one. That should be the debate that we are having.