Yes, it’s
encouraging that Hastert and DeLay were not able to strangle this vote. However, depending on what the Senate
does now and what happens in Conference Committee, we’ll see if they produce
something that Bush will have to veto.
The Washington
Post version of this mentions that possibility:
The action moves back to the Senate, where the Commerce Committee
already has passed a bill to roll back the TV-ownership cap. That bill also
limits the FCC's relaxation of rules governing combined newspaper and
television ownership, setting up a potential battle in a conference committee
if the full Senate approves the measure.
Spokesmen for key GOP House leaders
yesterday were unconcerned
about the House change and said they think they can even restore the 45 percent
cap in conference negotiations. They argue that with the GOP controlling both houses of
Congress, it is unlikely that a bill that President Bush might veto would get
passed. "Republicans control this place and
the last thing they are going to do is embarrass this president," said John Scofield,
communications director of the House Appropriations Committee.
… Bush has not commented directly, but a
statement from the Office of Management and Budget said that the administration
supports the new rules, and the president's advisers would counsel him to veto a bill
that changed any of them.
But Democrats and consumer activists were
similarly confident. They
noted that many
Republicans, especially from rural areas where one or two media outlets
dominate the landscape,
support scaling back the FCC television cap. And they seemed to relish the prospect of Bush vetoing a
measure that has strong public support.
"The fact that the House is passing
[a reduced] national cap opens the door for the Senate to combine other
measures that are stronger and to challenge the White House," said Gene
Kimmelman, director of public policy for Consumers Union. (end of excerpts. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35717-2003Jul23.html?nav=hptop_tb)
It’s going to be a check/ checkmate game from here on. Moderate Republicans feel more
important to the checks and balances process (hallelujah) and empowered. Hearing from their all their constituency
really makes a huge difference. The
web is our equalizer. MoveOn.org
and the other groups mobilizing grassroots voters to speak out is critical –
this is what the radical right has been doing for 10 years or more with Ralph
Reed and it’s past time that other voices be heard. I am watching to see what they do with the Energy Act in the
remainder of this session, if the opposition will be similarly organized.
-KWC
Yes!!!!!
I have sent so many faxes and phone calls and emails about this and it seems to
have made a difference.
What a good feeling.
Selma
----------------------------------------------------------
House Votes, 400-21, to Block Media Rule by the F.C.C.
July 23, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:51 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Wednesday to prevent
federal regulators from letting individual broadcast
companies own television stations serving nearly half the
national TV market, ignoring the preferences of its own
Republican leaders and a Bush administration veto threat.
By a 400-21 vote, lawmakers approved a spending bill with
language blocking a Federal Communications Commission
decision to let companies own TV stations serving up to 45
percent of the country's viewers. The current ceiling is 35
percent.
Despite GOP control of the White House, Congress and the
FCC, the House vote set the stage for what may ultimately
be an unraveling of a regulatory policy that the party
strongly favors. The fight now moves to the Senate, where
several lawmakers of both parties want to include a similar
provision in their version of the bill.
Top Republicans are hoping that, with leverage from the
threat of a first-ever veto by President Bush, the final
House-Senate compromise bill later this year will drop the
provision thwarting the FCC.
In a show of defiance, FCC Chairman Michael Powell issued a
written statement before the vote defending the
commission's decision. The five-member FCC approved the new
rules on a 3-2 party-line vote on June 2.
``We are confident in our decision,'' Powell said. ``We
created enforceable rules that reflect the realities of
today's media marketplace. The rules will benefit Americans
by protecting localism, competition and diversity.''
A statement by NBC lobbyist Bob Okun praised the FCC
decision as ``a positive and much needed step offering
regulatory relief to free, over-the-air television,'' and
called the legislation ``extremely disappointing to us.''
Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chief sponsor of the provision
that would derail the liberalized FCC rules, acknowledged
in an interview that a tough fight lay ahead over keeping
the language intact in the bill's final version. But he
declared victory, for now.
``It's extremely rare to be able to reverse a regulatory
decision that gives away the store to the big boys,'' Obey
said.
With programming power and many billions of dollars at
stake, the battle has pitted the big broadcast networks
against smaller station owners and an array of groups, from
the Christian Coalition to the Consumers Union.
``We've been facing a total roadblock on doing anything in
the House,'' said Gene Kimmelman, public policy director
for the consumer union. He said the House vote meant ``that
roadblock will be torn apart.''
The biggest beneficiaries of the FCC ruling would be Viacom
Inc., which owns the CBS and UPN networks, and News Corp.,
owner of Fox. Due to mergers and acquisitions, both already
exceed the 35 percent limit.
Opponents of the FCC decision said it would give giant
broadcast corporations too much clout, at the expense of
communities and a diversity of voices.
Supporters of the FCC rule said the older, tighter limits
ignore a high-tech era in which cable and satellite TV,
plus the Internet, have intensified the competition they
face. And they said that with even the largest networks
owning less than 3 percent of the nation's 1,300 broadcast
stations, the clout of the networks was being exaggerated.
Even so, short of support and eager to prevent FCC
opponents from using a House roll call to show their
strength, GOP leaders didn't even try removing the language
from the bill. Instead, they said they would seek to kill
it when House-Senate bargainers craft a compromise bill
later this year.
Hoping to increase their power, some Republicans were
seeking House members' signatures for a letter pledging to
vote to sustain a veto, GOP aides said. It would take 145
lawmakers, or one-third of the House, to uphold a veto,
which would be President Bush's first.
Some senators may try including similar language in the
Senate version of the bill, which may not be written until
the fall.
The provision was included last week in a $37.9 billion
measure financing the departments of Commerce, State and
Justice next year.
On Tuesday, a White House budget office statement said the
new FCC rules ``more accurately reflect the changing media
landscape and the current state of network station
ownership, while still guarding against undue concentration
in the marketplace.''
The budget office threatened a veto if ``this provision or
a provision like it with respect to any one of the other
FCC rules'' is sent to Bush.
On a different issue, lawmakers rejected another amendment
by 273-152 that would bar the federal government from
interfering with 10 states that allow the medical use of
marijuana.
On Tuesday, the House by 309-118 included another amendment
blocking the government from performing ``sneak and peek''
searches under the USA Patriot Act. That law, enacted after
the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, allowed such
searches without the property owner's or resident's
knowledge with warrants that are delivered afterward.
The House bill affected only part of the FCC's decision.
By 254-174, the chamber rejected an amendment by Rep.
Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., to kill the entire FCC ruling,
which he said would impede local media control. The June 2
ruling also would make it easier for companies to own
newspapers and broadcast stations in the same community,
and to own more than one broadcast outlet in a market.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Media-Ownership.html?ex=1059994905&ei=1&en=48522b12dded9e17
