From Michael Cloud, US Congressman, Texas District 2.
I wanted to give you all an update on an issue I’ve been asked about several times lately, which is the bill I recently had to vote NO on in the House. It was a bill called the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” but truthfully, the title was misleading.

Too often, Congress speedily advances well-intended but poorly drafted legislation that actually does more damage than the issue it attempts to address. That was the case with this bill. It may have been well-intentioned, but it contained language that was way too broad and I believe violated free speech rights. In trying to condemn antisemitism, the text went so far as to list things that could be labeled as “hate speech.” Under this bill, even someone reading Biblical passages talking about Jesus’s crucifixion could be accused of “hate speech.”

These were issues that could have been fixed had House Leadership allowed for Member input, but as we were working to solve the problems, leadership steamrolled us and scheduled the vote anyway. That’s not the way the people’s house should work.

What’s happening towards our Jewish brothers and sisters is shameful and should be dealt with. It is indicative of a much bigger problem and a sickness within our country that leaders need to deal with head-on. But playing leftist games and labeling things “hate speech” not only violates free speech rights, it pretends we’re doing something useful when we really aren’t.

Instead, we should be focusing our attention on using Congress’ Constitutional power of the purse to defund taxpayer-funded institutions pushing ideologies like antisemitism. We should also block President Biden’s bureaucracy from getting more funding after he, once again, ignored clear Congressional direction (also known as the law) to speedily deliver military aid to Israel. Let’s actually use our leverage to implement consequences and change – not just push talking points.

I hope that explains my position for those of you asking.