Episode 13: Is it Legal for Families of Congress to Protest?
(photo by Kitty Felde)
The short answer is “no.” Abuelita is correct in asserting her First Amendment rights.
If she were being paid to lobby her son, that’s more problematic.
In 2007, Congress made it more difficult for family members to formally lobby their lawmaker relatives. In other words, become a professional lobbyist. The practice has not entirely gone away. According to an investigation by The Washington Post, more than 500 companies paid more than $400 million over five years to lobbying firms that had congressional relatives on the payroll.
Abuelita isn’t getting a paycheck. But her activism could create political consequences for her son.
Congressman Mendoza often refers to the head of his party in Congress, the Minority Leader, the “boss.” If she wants to punish him, she can remove him from a committee, decline to share her campaign funds with him, or push any legislation he sponsors to the back of the line. Or she can publicly embarrass him.
Political embarrassment is nothing new.
Nearly every president of the United States has had problematic relatives:
The stepson of James Madison, John Payne Todd, had a criminal record for assault and “shooting incidents” and spent time in debtor’s prison. None-the-less, the president sent him to Russia with a diplomatic team, but Todd was more interested in the ladies. After spending time in Paris, he ran up another $10,000 in debt.
(photo courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The son of John Quincy Adams, was expelled from Harvard for participating in a student riot. Later, when his father left the presidency and served as a congressman, John Adams II got into a fistfight in the Capitol Rotunda with a reporter.
Alice Roosevelt was a teenager when her father Theodore Roosevelt became Commander in Chief. She smoked in public, gambled on the ponies, and carried a snake with her named Emily Spinach, named after an aunt. TR threw up his hands, telling a friend, “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.”
(photo courtesy National Portrait Gallery)Perhaps Papa should adopt the philosophy with regard to his mother.
Here’s the fiction inspired by the facts:
In Episode 13 of The Fina Mendoza Mysteries podcast, Fina’s father and grandmother are having a fight over Abuelita’s participation in an immigration reform protest and appearing on TV to talk about it.
“PAPA: The Minority Leader read me the riot act. Called it a ‘stunt.’ Said I was grandstanding, using my own mother to pressure the Gang of Eight. Or the Gang of Five, as it is now since a Democrat has dropped out.
ABUELITA: I was just exercising my First Amendment rights, mijo. My freedom of speech.
PAPA: Your First Amendment exercise embarrassed me in front of my colleagues. And if that was your goal Mama, you succeeded. I’m going to make a few phone calls and see if I can undo the damage. Good NIGHT, Mama.”