The Senate hearing on October 29 made it plain again who is fighting for free speech and who is more interested in protecting their political turf than Americans’ rights. Chairman Ted Cruz convened a blistering session aimed squarely at the Biden administration’s use of federal agencies to “jawbone” Big Tech into silencing dissenting voices — a fight over speech that should concern every patriot who believes the First Amendment still matters.
Senator Ed Markey tried to rewrite the narrative, telling the committee that Republicans had wasted time chasing a phantom censorship scheme and pointing to court losses as proof the whole story was a lie. Republicans on the committee, however, weren’t having it; they pressed witnesses and dug into emails showing a culture of coordination between government actors and platform moderators. Markey’s defensive posture looked less like principled oversight and more like partisan deflection.
Make no mistake — this was not just about abstract legal arguments. While Democrats posture about “misinformation,” they’re the same party that has used shutdown politics to try to extract policy wins, leaving millions of Americans to suffer the consequences. The government shutdown that stretched through late October laid bare who is playing political games and who is trying to keep the lights on and food on the table. Conservative voters watching this hearing saw a glaring hypocrisy: lectures on integrity from a party that helped bring the country to the brink.
Cruz didn’t mince words, and rightly so. He outlined a real legislative remedy — the JAWBONE Act — to give Americans a way to push back when federal bureaucrats collude with private companies to suppress speech. That kind of muscle is exactly what’s needed when Washington insiders think they can police thought and opinion through back channels and press releases. Americans deserve laws that protect expression, not a secret bureaucracy deciding who gets heard.
This was more than a policy debate; it was a moral one. Millions now face disruptions to SNAP and other vital programs as funding fights drag on, and yet some in Washington would rather grandstand than govern. Holding a hearing about censorship while refusing to reopen the government is the literal definition of putting politics ahead of people, and conservative lawmakers were right to call that out loudly.
If Republicans are serious about defending speech and the rule of law, they must convert outrage into action — not just headlines. The witnesses at the hearing made clear that tech platforms too often folded under government pressure, and Congress can and should craft ironclad protections so that no future administration can weaponize agencies against its critics. This isn’t partisan theater; it’s about preserving the marketplace of ideas that built this country.
At the end of the day, hardworking Americans don’t want pious speeches or Washington infighting; they want their voices heard and their children fed. Senators who stand in the way of transparency and accountability have to answer for putting power over people. The Cruz hearing exposed the rot — now it’s time for lawmakers to act, back the JAWBONE reforms, and stop letting elites in both parties use the levers of government to silence dissent and grind the country to a halt.
