Last week brought the disclosure that New York state officials were seeking to force a sex-abuse victim to register as a lobbyist because of her efforts to promote passage of state legislation to change the statute of limitations for sex-abuse victims’ damages lawsuits. According to published reports, Kat Sullivan spent more than $16,000 of her own money last year to rent three highway billboards, to have a plane puling a message sign flown over the State Capitol, and to maintain a website, all in support of the Child Victims Act, which ultimately passed in the most recent legislative session.

While the government has important interests in regulating lobbying, those interests run headlong into the First Amendment. Potential free-speech conflicts become ever more acute as the lobbying at issue becomes more and more removed from efforts by hired lobbyists to communicate directly with government officials.

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