Few of us believe that any legislator ever met a new “tough on crime” law they didn’t like.  Maybe this is the first.  From Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy, the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the proposed Megan Meier Cyberbullying law did not go well.

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-California) lobbied fellow lawmakers of a House Judiciary subcommittee to back her proposed legislation dubbed the “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act.” In its first congressional hearing, Sanchez said the proposal was designed to target the cyberbullying that led to the 2006 suicide of the 13-year-old Meier of Missouri.

“Bullying has gone electronic,” Sanchez testified before the Subcommitttee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. “This literally means kids can be bullies at any hour of the day or the night, or even in the victims’ own home.”

From the outset of the 90-minute hearing, however, committee members from the left and the right said they thought the measure was an unconstitutional breach of free speech. “We need to be extremely careful before heading down this path,” Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia and the committee’s chairman, said during the hearing’s opening moment.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said the legislation “appears to be another chapter of over-criminalization.” He quipped, however, that the law could target the “mean-spirited liberals” in the blogosphere that are attacking himself and his family regularly.

About 30 minutes later, Gohmert said that not all prosecutors would exercise good judgment, that they might “harass the harasser.”

First, it’s gratifying to know that our Congressfolk not only know about the first amendment to the Constitution, but can use it properly in a sentence.  As previously noted, this particular bill goes way off the charts on finding criminal liability under any and every rock.  But then, as we learned from the Lori Drew prosecution, the government would be ill-inclined to find itself with someone they want to prosecute and no law readily available. 

The hearing will still be receiving testimony from “experts” who will both explain why it’s critical to create a new crime and why it is unconstitutional.  Don’t forget the contentiousness of the Cyber Civil Rights Symposium of recent vintage, where many, perhaps even the bulk, of the lawprofs were more than happy to trade off the first amendment for criminal sanctions as soon as bullying was redefined as gender discrimination.

The fight is hardly over yet, but maybe this time, this one time, Congress has finally found a bill named after a dead child that is just too butt ugly to enact?  Maybe.