At 5:07 p.m. on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, Senator Richard Blumenthal rose on the Senate floor and asked unanimous consent to discharge the Kids Online Safety Act, S. 1748, from committee, adopt a substitute amendment at the desk, and pass it — no debate, no amendments, no roll call. The Senate was hours from adjourning until after the November 3 elections. Under the chamber’s rules, one objection stops a unanimous-consent request. The presiding officer asked whether there was objection and recognized the senator from Kentucky (Senate Daily Press, Sept. 30, 2026; Congressional Record, S5213–S5214).
Rand Paul — who had shared the stage at the Constitution Day conference in Washington where this coalition launched two weeks earlier — reserved the right to object. What he said next is the reason Restore the First is naming him a Restore the 1st Hero: not because of his party, and not because of any other vote he has cast, but because he did the specific thing this coalition exists to ask of public officials. He stood between a vague federal speech mandate and the statute books, and he explained why, on the record, in the words the First Amendment requires.
What he said
From the Congressional Record for September 30, 2026:
“Reserving right to object, if good intentions created laws — or created good laws — there would be no need for congressional debate. I have no doubt that the authors of this bill genuinely want to protect children, but the bill they have written promises to be a Pandora’s box of unintended consequences.
“KOSA would impose an unprecedented duty of care on internet platform[s] to mitigate certain harms associated with mental health, such as anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. While proponents can claim that the bill is not designed to regulate content, imposing a duty of care will inevitably lead to one outcome: the stifling of First Amendment protected speech.
“No matter how many times the bill text is altered, no matter how many times KOSA’s authors try to disguise its censorship, the reality remains that this legislation will silence constitutionally protected speech. Government mandates and censorship will not protect children online. The internet may pose new problems. But there is an age-old solution to this issue. Free minds and parental guidance are the best means to protect our children online. I object.”
He also read into the record a 2024 statement from Students for Life Action warning that “those targeted by a weaponized federal government will almost always include pro-life Americans,” and noted the date: the fiftieth anniversary of the Hyde Amendment. “If KOSA can silence pro-life speech because online messages encouraging adoption and discouraging abortion might cause a teen mom anxiety,” he said, “then KOSA is the kind of censorship all those who believe in the sanctity of life should oppose” (Congressional Record).
The objection was heard. The Senate adjourned at 11:24 p.m. and will not return to legislative business until after the election (Senate Daily Press; Washington Times).
The sponsors’ answer, in fairness
Senator Blumenthal responded on the floor that the objection was “based on the misunderstanding that this bill somehow imposes censorship or content evaluation,” that Section 102(a) reaches only the “creation and implementation of any design feature,” and that Section 102(b)(1) says the duty of care cannot be read to stop a minor from “deliberately and independently searching for, or specifically requesting, content.” “In short,” he said, “the duty of care has nothing to do with censorship” (Congressional Record). Senator Blackburn has pointed to the bill’s carve-outs for news, commentary, criticism, scholarship, satire and parody (Washington Times).
We take the sponsors at their word about their intentions. The problem is the mechanism. A “design feature” is defined by its effect on minors’ time and activity, and the duty attaches when that feature “foreseeably contributes” to anxiety, depression, eating disorders, or compulsive use — harms that are inseparable from the content a feed delivers. The Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general decide, after the fact, whether a platform’s care was “reasonable.” As Paul wrote in 2024, “website design does not cause harm. It is content, not design, that this bill will regulate” (Reason, Aug. 22, 2024). The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s reading of the August 2026 committee text is the same: for a platform facing liability, “the safest response is to remove lawful speech or shut down forums discussing those topics altogether” (EFF).
Why this coalition cares about KOSA
Restore the First was built by six Americans who were named in a 2021 report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and then throttled, labeled, and removed across the major platforms while federal officials pressed those platforms to act. Their case, Finn v. Global Engagement Center, was dismissed on procedural grounds in July 2026 without a ruling on the merits. The lesson of that record is that the most effective censorship in America has not come from a statute banning speech. It has come from pressure on intermediaries, applied by officials with leverage and no clear legal limit.
KOSA converts that pressure into law. A harm standard that is vague by design, enforced by a federal agency and fifty elected attorneys general, is a permanent, statutory version of the lever that the Murthy record shows officials already used informally. It is also a bill that CCDH endorsed in February 2024, praising its “duty of care,” and still lists first on its August 2026 wish list for Congress. It is the bill whose December 2024 text was negotiated with X Corp, after which FIRE wrote that X “betrays its past commitments to opposing government censorship” (Blackburn–Blumenthal statement; FIRE). Our founder flagged that contradiction the day it happened. KOSA and its House vehicle sit on our policy tracker as bills we oppose.
A record, not a moment
Wednesday’s objection was not a one-off. It is the latest entry in a consistent record on exactly the question this coalition cares about.
July 30, 2024. When the Senate passed the previous version of KOSA 91–3, Paul was one of the three no votes, with Mike Lee and Ron Wyden (Senate Daily Press, July 30, 2024). He had offered an amendment providing “that no regulations made under KOSA shall apply to political, social, or religious speech.” The sponsors blocked it from a vote. “If the supporters of this legislation really do want to leave content alone,” he wrote afterward, “they would have welcomed and supported my amendment” (Reason, Aug. 22, 2024).
January 22, 2025. He introduced the Free Speech Protection Act, S. 188, which would prohibit federal employees and contractors from directing online platforms to censor protected speech — the most direct statutory codification of the Murthy factual record in the 119th Congress. It has been on our Speech pillar as a bill we support since the blueprint launched.
September 28, 2026. Answering a Politico profile that called him an “immovable roadblock,” he wrote: “In truth, I’m ‘cantankerous’ and ‘intransigent’ when it comes to Big Government spying on American citizens (FISA) or using Big Tech as a proxy to censor speech” (Louisville Courier-Journal). Two days later he proved it.
What “hero” means here
Restore the First does not endorse candidates, and a Hero designation is not an endorsement of anyone’s record as a whole. Our coalition spans organizations and outlets that disagree with Senator Paul on plenty. The designation recognizes one thing: a specific, documented act in defense of the First Amendment, taken when it was costly or inconvenient, by someone in a position to make a difference. On September 30, a bill with 76 cosponsors was minutes from passing without a vote. One senator required the Senate to do its job. That is the standard.
We should be equally clear about what the objection did not do. It did not defeat KOSA. The bill still sits on the Senate calendar with a committee-approved substitute; the House passed its own version, the KIDS Act, 267–117 in June; and the sponsors have promised to try again in the post-election session. Senator Blumenthal told the floor: “Put KOSA on the ballot and demand that Congress pass a strong internet safety bill to protect children” (Congressional Record). We agree that it belongs on the ballot. Every candidate for the Senate should be asked, between now and November 3, whether they will vote for a federal “duty of care” over online speech — and whether they will insist on a recorded vote.
What you can do in the next thirty days
1. Thank Senator Paul. Officials who take an unpopular stand for the First Amendment should hear from the people it protects. His Washington office is (202) 224-4343 (Senate directory); his office’s contact page is here. Keep it short and specific: the September 30 objection to S. 1748.
2. Ask your own senators two questions. Will you oppose any attempt to pass S. 1748 by unanimous consent or in a year-end package? And will you commit to voting no on a “duty of care” enforceable by the FTC and state attorneys general over lawful speech? Use the Senate lookup on our JAWBONE action page to find them. If they are on the ballot, ask at the town hall.
3. Pair the no with a yes. Congress can protect children without a speech mandate: enforce existing law against predators and fraud, pass real privacy protections for everyone, and prohibit the government from leaning on platforms in the first place. Senator Paul’s S. 188 and the bipartisan JAWBONE Act, S. 4749, are the yes. Ask your senators to cosponsor them.
KOSA and the KIDS Act are tracked, with every source, at restorethe1st.com/blueprint.html#kosa. The KIDS Act’s chatbot title is on the AI Rights bill tracker.
Restore the First is a citizens’ coalition organized around the six plaintiffs in Finn v. Global Engagement Center and their partner organizations. Restore the 1st Hero designations are editorial recognitions of a specific documented act in defense of the First Amendment; they are not candidate endorsements and do not speak for individual partner organizations. Quotations from the Senate floor are taken from the Congressional Record, Vol. 172, No. 155 (Sept. 30, 2026), pages S5213–S5214.