The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has slapped “Harmful Language” warnings on online displays of American founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—and U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA-17) is keeping quiet about it.
The Star News Network emailed Lamb’s press office Friday to ascertain his view of the matter. Neither the congressman—who recently announced a bid for U.S. Senate—nor his staff have replied.
An online statement from NARA says its online materials contain “some content that may be harmful or difficult to view.” Some records, it goes on, “may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions.” NARA promises to “seek to balance the preservation of this history with sensitivity to how these materials are presented to and perceived by users.”
This is only the latest move toward political correctness by NARA, whose Task Force on Racism has generated internal calls for removing the term “charters of freedom” from descriptions of U.S. founding documents.
This May, about 800 NARA staffers from locations across America attended a meeting held by the task force. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) records reflect that one presenter at the meeting said, “We should reimagine the [Capitol Rotunda] to encourage both celebration of the documents’ successes with an honest reckoning with their failures” such as slavery.
Voters in what was then the GOP-leaning 18th Congressional District chose Lamb in a special election in March 2018 to replace disgraced Republican Rep. Tim Murphy. Redistricting has since put Lamb in the also GOP-leaning 18th Congressional District in and around Pittsburgh.
Lamb has relied on his reputation as a moderate for his electoral successes so far, though he has lately demonstrated what Roll Call has called an “increasing willingness to vote with his party as he navigates a competitive House district and weighs a Senate run.”
An outspoken ally of President Joe Biden, Lamb has voted in favor of Biden’s position on each of the 36 pieces of legislation tracked by the data-analyzing website FiveThirtyEight. The representative’s voting record has earned him a 100-percent rating from the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood Action Fund, a 94-percent rating from the pro-LGBTQ Human Rights Campaign and an 85-percent score from the environmentalist League of Conservation Voters.
Although he hasn’t commented on the “Harmful Language Alert” NARA has affixed to its online display of the Constitution, Lamb has been happy to invoke that document on the campaign trail.
“I swore an oath to protect the Constitution as a Marine, as a prosecutor and as a member of Congress, and I will keep that oath,” the representative said in a video previewing his senatorial run.
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Bradley Vasoli is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
