arl Gallant is chairman of the Republican Majority Issues Committee. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed a racketeering suit against House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, the U.S. Family Network, Americans for Economic Growth, and the Republican Majority Issues Committee earlier this week.

NR: What is the Republican Majority Issues Committee?

Karl Gallant: REMIC is an independent organization that has been set up to identify, educate, and mobilize conservative voters in key House races as a mirror to the AFL-CIO and the liberal-Left networks — the liberal voter-identification and mobilization turnout programs, which, according to press reports, are going to run into the tens of millions of dollars. Basically, the union-Left coalition propping up the Democratic party has decided to go on the ground with a traditional nuts-and-bolts liberal voter-ID program and REMIC is set up to do the same on the conservative side.

NR: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has just filed a lawsuit against REMIC and Tom DeLay. What’s it about?

Gallant: Basically, the lawsuit by Patrick Kennedy and the party hacks at the DCCC is just a storm-trooper tactic to shut us up and to put us out of business so that conservatives don’t have a voice in the upcoming House elections.

NR: The DCCC’s grounds for the lawsuit is the RICO statute that was, of course, originally set up to get mobsters. We’ve seen this particular law used against conservatives before. Is this a coincidence?

Gallant: Well, first of all, hen you have government officials like Rep. Kennedy equating free speech with racketeering and organized crime, you might as well go back to the days of King George and the Hessians or maybe go live in less enlightened societies like Iran. Secondly, for independent issue groups, left and right, there is a broader First Amendment problem with allowing party hacks from either side to come in and stamp out free speech by independent groups, liberal or conservative. And from the conservative point of view, that is a bad thing, in the long run, for the country.

The people behind this clearly see that they’re not going to win the elections at the ballot box, and what they want to do is take it out of the ballot box and throw it into a legal thicket. They are trying to silence us so that we are not able to organize conservatives in the election. This is consistent with the national Democratic party’s leadership, their antics at the White House, and their general disrespect for the rule of law and the Constitution.

NR: Has the American Civil Liberties Union commented on this yet?

Gallant: Not that I know of. The campaign-watchdog groups cluck with disapproval over REMIC’s refusal to disclose donors, which, of course, is perfectly appropriate because we are not giving money to candidates. In the same way, the NAACP didn’t want to disclose its donors, and won a court case protecting those donors and supporters from Klan retaliation. The same campaign watchdogs that disapprove my group’s exercise of First Amendment rights don’t disclose their own contributors — even though they raised the campaign-reform issue in a way that they hope will affect the elections. There’s a whole lot of hypocrisy coming over from the Democrats and their liberal allies, who should be howling in protest about this First Amendment issue. They are eerily silent.

NR: At this point, the lawsuit has been brought. You and Tom DeLay and the other groups involved are being labeled in the media as "secretive" and as "racketeers." If this suit is dismissed, does it still have a lasting impact on the election?

Gallant: Well, let me just say that at his press conference, Rep. Kennedy said that his plan was to shut down REMIC prior to the election. So, clearly, he seems to think that my organization is going to be a key in the outcome of the House elections. I’m flattered by his vote of confidence in REMIC’s abilities. We are not going to allow any party hack to shut down our ability to give conservatives an organized voice in the House elections.

NR: I’m wondering about the impact in terms of donors. Even if, judicially, this case goes nowhere, does it wind up hurting you because donors are going to shy away from contributing — either because they are afraid that some court case is going to release their names, or because they don’t want to be involved with a group that’s on the front page of the newspapers?

Gallant: Right now, my donors are mad, and more determined than ever to fight. From what I’ve seen in the editorial pages across the country, from the Fort Worth Star Telegram to the Washington Post, they think the lawsuit is an abhorrent and frivolous abuse of the RICO statute. It will not have an impact on REMIC. We’re dedicated to pushing forward and aren’t going to be intimidated by the likes of Rep. Kennedy, that’s for sure. But, if this lawsuit proceeds, I can guarantee you that there will be a multitude of copycat lawsuits where people are going to take the decision out of voters’ hands and put it into the judicial system. At some point in the future it could have a chilling effect on the willingness of donors of all ideological stripes to give to organizations that are petitioning the government. We don’t need this chilling effect, at a time when the so-called "campaign reform" watchdogs are concerned about lower voter and citizen participation in the process.

NR: In the pragmatic short term, do you think that this is just going to incite conservatives and get them out to vote in larger numbers than they would otherwise? Will it blow up in the House Democrats’ faces?

Gallant: I think so. I want to thank Rep. Kennedy for the free publicity. I want to thank him for further energizing my donor base. I want to thank him for alerting Americans to an out-of-control government that labels free speech as "organized crime." This will benefit REMIC across the board and make us stronger than ever going into the elections. So, a big thank you to Rep. Kennedy.