In an early Christmas present to Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, RedState’s Erick Erickson promised Thursday to do whatever it takes to stop her from being re-elected in 2012.
It’s nothing personal; not even political.
“I love Marsha Blackburn,” Erickson began the piece. “She is a delightful lady and a solidly conservative member of Congress.”
“And I am pledging right now that I will do everything in my power to defeat her in her 2012 re-election bid,” he adds.
The root of Erickson’s displeasure is the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill of which Blackburn is a sponsor, along with Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, and many others.
The bill, as the name might suggests, aims to “stop online piracy” by allowing the Justice Department and copyright holders to take legal action to shut down websites that engage in copyright infringements. The injured parties could seek court orders against the websites, and punishments could include blocking advertisers and money transfer websites, like PayPal, from working with the offending sites.
For Erickson, that amounts to “allowing Erick Holder to take control of the internet and shut down websites he does not like,” and he calls it, “a totalitarian response from a bipartisan coalition of Congresscritters, most of whom admit they have no freaking idea how the internet works.”
Erickson called for bipartisan action to oust any member of Congress who adds his name to the list of sponsors.
“This battle is so important — and is one of those rare fights where the left and right are united against Congress — that I suggest the left and right unite and pledge to defeat in primaries every person named as a sponsor on H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act,” he wrote.
In his plan, voters on both sides contribute to a fund that would support primary challenges to each of the congressional sponsors, Republican and Democrat alike, even though, Erickson acknowledges, “This might mean some allies are taken out” for both parties. It is worth it, he writes, to fight SOPA.
“Congress has proven it does not understand the internet. Perhaps they will understand brute strength against them at the ballot box,” he wrote.
Blackburn’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment.