Can members of the U.S. Congress come together, bridge partisan differences and come to consensus on issues of the day? Of course, you might scoff, they can name Post Offices after one another. But can House and Senate, Democrat and Republican and Independent come together any more and agree on any issue of importance?

Yes, they can. The success of H.R. 2765 shows us that.

A significant threat to freedom of speech in the United States of America arrives from overseas in the form of a development called “libel shopping.” In the United States, the right to free speech in the First Amendment to the Constitution holds supremacy; if a person wants to successfully sue another for libel, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant knowingly wrote a false and injurious statement. In Britain, on the other hand, a defendant in a libel suit must prove that the negative declaration he or she made is not false. Proving a negative is very hard, so it’s much easier to win a libel lawsuit in Britain than it is in America.

That’s the “libel” part; where does “shopping” come in? As book sales globalize and the Internet spreads everywhere, it becomes harder and harder to limit one’s written declarations to just one country; they spread everywhere. Imagine that a target of someone’s writing — say, a powerful multinational corporation, a rich individual or a well-placed politician — doesn’t like what’s being written about him, her, or it. So long as the target can find an copy of that piece of writing somewhere in Britain, then the target can try to file a libel lawsuit in Britain against the author. If the author isn’t rich and can’t afford a lawyer, then the author may be forced to settle, with terms that might include a retraction or a deletion of what’s been written. Say goodbye to free speech when it matters most.

H.R. 2765, introduced by Representative Steve Cohen, preserves American writers’ free speech and protects them against libel shopping. The bill prohibits American courts from recognizing or cooperating with libel decisions by foreign courts when those decisions conflict with Americans’ free speech rights.

H.R. 2765 is now law. It was cosponsored by a bipartisan team of legislators. It was passed unanimously by the House, then passed unanimously by the Senate, then signed into law late last month by President Barack Obama.

It is after all possible for members of the House and Senate to successfully work together for some greater good. It is important for us to remember this.