GOP lawmaker touts House passage of censorship protections, warns against government interference

Texas Republican Rep. Brian Babin on Thursday celebrated the House passing legislation to curb government censorship of free speech.

Appearing on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show, Babin discussed the House having passed the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act by a 219-206 margin on a strictly party-line vote. The bill states that "employees acting in their official capacity should neither take action within their authority or influence to promote the censorship of any lawful speech, nor advocate that a third party, including a private entity, censor such speech."

"[I]t does not surprise me, unfortunately," he said of Democratic opposition. "But this is one of the good things, delivering for the American people finally doing something about censorship, and weaponization against conservatives. And so I'm very proud that we did today."

Babin went on to outline the degree to which major American institutions had invested in the federal censorship apparatus, citing an apparent insecurity in their beliefs as a motivating factor.

"It's going to take education and sadly, public education, academia, our media, our entertainment industry, there's so many factors there that have really kind of led people down the primrose path, where they are at the point where they're willing to give up their freedoms and liberties for a little bit of security or for their narrow minded ideological views," he said.

"It's incredible, because if these go by the wayside, our constitutional rights, especially as you said, the First Amendment, if that goes by the wayside, it's not going to come back without major problems," he warned. "It's not even pretty to think about once you lose it, trying to get it back."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.