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Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu: ‘I Would Love’ To Regulate Speech

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In a segment on CNN Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Ted Lieu lamented that fact that the First Amendment prevents him from regulating speech.

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In a segment on CNN Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California) lamented that the First Amendment prevents him from regulating speech.

CNN’s Brianna Keilar asked the congressman if he missed an opportunity to hammer Google CEO Sundar Pichai about the search engine’s vulnerability to be co-opted by foreign governments and bad actors. In response, Lieu said he wished he could regulate speech.

“I would love to be able to regulate the content of speech,” Lieu said. “The First Amendment prevents me from doing so and that’s simply a function of the First Amendment.”

“Over the long run, it’s better that government does not regulate the content of speech,” he added, before encouraging companies to police speech.

“I would urge these private-sector companies to regulate better themselves, but it’s really nothing that I believe government can do,” he said.

Lieu’s comments fall in line with the Democratic Party’s platform, which explicitly calls for overturning the First Amendment to enable lawmakers to regulate who can say what about politicians.

“We will fight to end the broken campaign finance system, overturn the disastrous Citizens United decision, restore the full power of the Voting Rights Act, and return control of our elections to the American people,” the party platform states.