Everybody and their Mom is talking about the pending legislation in Congress aimed at stopping online piracy and protecting intellectual property. While it doesn’t look like either chamber of Congress will vote on the legislation anytime soon, both the Senate bill (PIPA) and the House bill (SOPA) continue to cause a lot of controversy, leading some websites such as Wikipedia to go offline for 24 hours in protest, and leading many a Facebook friend- including several whom I’m pretty sure would not be able to identify a picture of Joe Biden- to post links to various petitions aimed at stopping this legislation.
While the stated goals of both bills are good, I agree that these bills, in their current form, are poor legislation and I’m encouraged to see The CATO Institute, The Heritage Foundation, The Drudge Report, Senator Marco Rubio, Representative Paul Ryan, and other conservative leaders come out in opposition to these bills.
But here’s my thing: Both congress and the state legislature address issues that are just as consequential as SOPA/PIPA, if not more so, on a regular basis. We shouldn’t require that an issue become a trending topic on Twitter, receive a celebrity spokesperson, or lead a major website to go offline in order for us to become engaged in this process.
I remember when I was an intern at the state capitol. The Senator I worked for that year sponsored what I believed was a very important bill, which would have allowed individuals who were victims of rape or abuse the opportunity to break a lease agreement and relocate to a safe place without having to face financial ruin. We issued a press release before the bill came up for a vote in committee, made information about the bill available on Facebook and the Senator’s website, etc., but we really weren’t ever able to drum up a lot of support or excitement for that legislation. There wasn’t much of an appetite for it in the media. Because people were not aware of what was going on, the lobbyists for the Tennessee Apartment Association came in and killed the bill. The day the bill came up for a vote in committee, you could hear crickets across the halls of our office building and the committee room- which is open to the public- was empty. The bill died and that was that.
Weeks later, the ‘Guns in Bars’ bill came up for a vote and it was chaos. Phones were ringing off the hook. Our office was inundated with emails. Supporters of the bill flooded the balcony of the Senate chamber. Constituents called telling me that if the Senator I worked for did not vote a certain way on this one bill, they would see to it that she was not reelected.
Do you see the point I’m making?
PIPA/SOPA is an important issue and yes, they are bad bills, but they aren’t the only items of legislation this year that I believe demand our attention.
The Tennessee state legislature, for example, is scheduled to take up a bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee next week which would make the sale of “designer drugs” known as “bath salts” and “Molly’s Plant Food,” illegal in the state of Tennessee (SB2172). This is important legislation. Tennessee- and especially the Upper Cumberland region of the state, where I live- has a real drug problem. Right now, manufacturers can take an illegal drug and make a chemical change of as little as one molecule, and create a substance that isn’t illegal. This bill will end that practice, and in doing so- save many lives.
Don’t wait for someone to tell you that something is important before you act on it. Be engaged in the process year round, and speak up on those issues that matter to you.
Thinking of all my D.C. congressional staffer friends today. Hope you’re able to catch a break at some point 
-Jonathan
Thinking the same thing but unsure of how to word it. Your real world experience was the perfect addition to what would have just been another opinion. Thanks for this.