As the U.S. House of Representatives voted recently to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of all her committee assignments, I was reminded of two sections of the Constitution. The first is Article 1, Section 5, which reads, “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” Clearly the Constitution gives the House the power to punish its own members for wrongdoing. Yet, at the same time, I also cannot help thinking of the First Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”
Coming to terms with these two sections can be difficult. If members of one party say something that members of the opposite party find extremely offensive, should the opposite party be able to censure someone from the first party? What rights to freedom of speech are given to members of Congress and what have we seen historically?
Anyone who has ever taken a class from me has at least once heard me rant against the misunderstanding of freedom of speech. That clause of the First Amendment does one thing and one think only; it protects you from government censorship and perhaps prosecution. It does not protect you from the consequences of your words. For politicians it could cost you an election, but not your freedom. You can say that Trump is a dictator or that Biden is senile, and government officials will not come kick down your door and take you away.
However, if you are in your workplace and rant about how your bosses are tyrants or senile, you may be fired. The First Amendment does not protect that speech. Not even all political speech is protected. If you wear a shirt that says “Make America Great Again” or “Black Lives Matter” at a workplace that has a policy against wearing political slogans, you can be fired. This is not a First Amendment Issue.
This is the most confused amendment in the Bill of Rights. The Founders did not intend to remove people’s responsibility for their actions or speech. They wanted to protect the people’s right to say what they thought, even peacefully protest the actions of their government. When passed, the Bill of Rights only applied to federal cases, not state ones, so, before the 1920s, the Bill of Rights actually had little effect on most people’s lives. Yet today, “freedom ...