It may have taken an upcoming presidential race to make Senator McCain believe in the First Amendment again, but whatever the reason, we’re glad to have him back on our side. Mr. McCain’s epiphany came during debate on the new “ethics” bill the Senate passed earlier this month. Mr. McCain and the Republicans — joined by seven Democrats for free speech — voted down a provision that would have redefined the word “lobbyist” to include groups like politically active churches, direct mail companies, small nonprofit organizations, and even bloggers.

Under the provision, known as Section 220 of the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007, these “paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying” would have been considered lobbying, meaning that organizations that asked the public to contact their elected representatives would have been regulated like multimillion dollar K Street firms. The assumption of Section 220 seems to have been that the American people are naïve enough to call their representatives and say whatever the lobbyists tell them to. In order to protect themselves from the influence of the these zombie armies of telephoning constituents, lawmakers wanted to regulate grassroots organizations the same as lobbyists and subject them to fines of up to $100,000 for failure to comply.

This was too much for even Mr. McCain to stomach, and he wasn’t alone. The unnecessary and restrictive regulation in the name of “ethics” was such a clear violation of the right to free speech and to petition that it had organizations including the ACLU and National Right to Life joining forces to support an amendment introduced by Senator Bennett, a Republican of Utah, to strike the provision from the bill. “Section 220 represents perhaps the most egregious attack on fundamental constitutional liberty that we have seen in many, many years,” the executive vice president of the American Conservative Union, J. William Lauderback, said during a teleconference on Friday that was hosted by the ACLU and brought together groups from all across the political spectrum. The ACLU representative, Marvin Johnson, was equally incensed: “How does grassroots lobbying corrupt Congress?” he asked rhetorically, adding that, “These are independent groups that are spending their own money to try and get people to contact their congressmen.”

When it came time to vote on the amendment, the seven Democrats for free speech — Senators Baucus, Bayh, Dorgan, Nelson, Salazar, Conrad, and Landrieu — crossed party lines and provided the margin necessary to pass the Bennett measure and strike down the onerous restrictions on the grass roots. Mr. McCain joined in on the side of the First Amendment as well, and the amendment passed, 54 votes to 43.

In another close Senate vote last week, Mr. McCain helped pass an amendment that would permit travel for senators and congressmen to be paid by nonprofit organizations approved by the Senate Ethics Committee. That amendment passed 51-46, also with the help of a handful of maverick Democrats: Senators Carper, Conrad, Landrieu, Mikulski, Nelson, and Leahy. The “ethics” hawks in Washington wanted to keep the Congress corralled in Washington and stick the taxpayers with the cost of their travel, figuring that any prolonged contact with actual interest groups might — heaven forfend — pose the risk of actually educating the impressionable lawmakers about some issues.

There is no similar legislation making its way through the House, although the House’s “ethics” reforms — passed in the form of a chamber-specific resolution rather than legislation — contained much of the same. Perhaps, then, the real virtue of the Senate “ethics” debate is that it gave Mr. McCain, his reputation marred by the passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign speech restriction legislation of 2002 that is known by his name, a chance to display his new-found support for the First Amendment, just in time for the 2008 presidential election. We always knew elections were good for freedom.