The old phrase holds that “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Its legal corollary: where there’s a wrong, there’s a remedy. Chief Justice John Marshall expanded upon this dictum in Marbury v. Madison (1803). “The Government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men,” the jurist wrote. “It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.” Nonetheless, now and again, plaintiffs find some odd obstruction in the scaffolding of the law which bars their attempts to secure redress. This ought not to dismay but to incite Congress to action and reform. In the American system, Congress is no passive bystander; it is the first branch of government. The task of lawmaking meets perpetual difficulties: the knowledge and foresight of human beings is bounded; language cannot escape some degree of imprecision; and new circumstances breed new abuses that require new legislation. When a deficiency in the law becomes apparent, reform must follow. Recent years have revealed such a deficiency, as the federal government jostled and coerced companies in the business of speech in the attempt to preside over and direct the content policies of media institutions and social media platforms. Fortunately, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has begun the work of reform. “Cruz plans to introduce a bill in the coming weeks that would codify protections against government-driven censorship, and make it easier for consumers to win monetary damages in lawsuits,” The Wall Street Journal relates in an exclusive report. Americans whose speech the federal government squelches encounter this difficulty: In Murthy v. Missouri (2024), the petitioners, who objected to the Biden administration’s efforts to mold social media’s content moderation policies, failed to persuade the Supreme Court to grant standing. The majority found the relationship between the government’s requests and demands and the deplatforming of the petitioners too tenuous, and the Court declined to intervene. Although some of the Biden administration’s conduct at issue in Murthy likely did not violate the First Amendment, and although relief was not granted, the majority opinion was no vindication of state influence or coercion levied against free speech. In the American system, Congress is no passive bystander; it is the first branch of government. And in instances in which the law does not grant to the judiciary the prerogative to halt abuses — particularly of the constitutional variety — Congress is duty bound to legislate. The problem of presidential meddling in private speech has persisted after President Donald Trump re-entered the Oval Office in January. Indeed, it was an act of the Trump Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that seems to have accelerated (although not, originally, to have provoked) Sen. Cruz’s effort. FCC chairman Brendan Carr menaced the broadcast license of Disney-owned ABC following Jimmy Kimmel’s factually unmoored and obstinately partisan discussion of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said, a threat which The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board aptly labeled “words that could have been uttered by a New Jersey mob boss.” Carr’s pursuit of Kimmel departs not a jot from the warp and woof of the policy of his first months helming the agency. Since January, he has leveraged his merger authorities to contort the editorial policies of broadcasters. Cruz, no friend of Kimmel and a good friend of Charlie Kirk, put it best: “Censorship is wrong, regardless of who’s doing it.” In its original sense, Lord Acton’s famous maxim  —that “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” — cautions not only against the abuses of power committed by “great men” but against the corruptions that fester in the minds of those adjacent to, and often overawed by, the great. Donald Trump and Joe Biden have little use for the rule of law, and not of men, which is apt to frustrate the personal ambitions of the powerful. Subordinate officers, jockeying for favor and position, have taken to inventing unconstitutional powers to please unscrupulous chief executives. The Presidency was not intended to deploy nebulous or unlimited prerogatives unchecked and unwatched by the legislature. The President is no tribune of the people — neither in his constitutional function nor as some supposed incarnation of the (largely fictitious) general will of the American people. No, it is Congress that must lead in governance. Presidents of both parties have succumbed to the tantalizing temptation of invading Americans’ speech rights. The legal system has, for colorable reason, declared itself incapable of intervention. The remedy is to be found on Capitol Hill. “Perhaps [the situation] poses an opportunity for us to work together in a bipartisan way,” Sen. Cruz said. If Congress manages to rediscover its institutional mettle, he will be proven right. READ MORE from David B. McGarry: Republicans Should Reject European-Style Tech Policy The Supreme Court Defends Free Speech New York’s Attempted Hit on the NRA Violated the First Amendment David B. McGarry is the research director at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.