Is Durbin Going After Limbaugh?

Conservatives fear that Democrats are pursuing a “back door” approach to cracking down on Clear Channel Communications, the media conglomerate that airs "The Rush Limbaugh Show," a favorite among conservatives.

The Senate voted along party lines Thursday to adopt an amendment sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the second-ranking Democrat in the chamber, that directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.”

Durbin said his proposal would encourage more women and minorities to apply for radio and TV ownership.

But Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.), chairman of the conservative Senate Republican Steering Committee, charged the proposal would lead to regulatory pressure on Clear Channel, which owns and operates more than 1,200 radio stations in the United States.

The vote came minutes before the Senate voted overwhelmingly to quash the Fairness Doctrine, a regulation the FCC enforced until the mid-1980s that required radio and TV stations to give equal airtime to conservative and liberal viewpoints.

Democrats have tried several times to revive the Fairness Doctrine, which critics argue would decimate conservative talk radio. Those efforts failed because of vetoes by former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

President Obama has made clear that he does not intend to reinstate the doctrine.

But Republicans aren’t convinced that Democrats have given up on loosening conservatives' grip on talk radio.

“Sen. Durbin’s amendment exposed Democrat intentions to impose radio censorship through the back door using vague regulations dealing with media ownership,” said DeMint.

Sen. John Thune (S.D.), vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said, “I am troubled that as we killed the ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ Sen. Durbin’s amendment brought to life a new threat to talk radio and other arenas of free speech.”

Aides to DeMint said the proposal was an attempt to “muzzle successful syndicated radio program” such as Limbaugh's.

“They’re trying to break up Clear Channel and other successful syndicated radio programs,” said Wesley Denton, a spokesman for DeMint.

“To argue what I am putting here is a dramatic change in the law, is going to somehow muzzle Rush Limbaugh — that’s not the case,” said Durbin during a floor debate with DeMint.

“No one is suggesting that the law for the Federal Communications Commission [FCC] says that you can give this license to a Republican and this one to a Democrat and this one to a liberal and this one to a conservative.

“When we talk about diversity in media ownership, it relates primarily to gender, race and other characteristics of that nature,” Durbin said.

The Senate voted to append Durbin’s proposal to the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act, which passed the Senate on Thursday afternoon.

Minutes after adopting Durbin’s amendment, the Senate voted 87-11 to adopt an amendment sponsored by DeMint that would prevent the FCC from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

Republicans have introduced companion legislation in the House, but Democrats in that chamber are not expected to allow a vote on the bill.

Conservatives fear that forcing stations to make equal time for liberal talk radio would slash profits and pressure radio executives to scale back on conservative programming to avoid escalating costs and interference from government regulators.

Opponents of the Fairness Doctrine argue that liberal talk radio has not proven popular or profitable. For example, Air America, liberals’ answer to “The Rush Limbaugh Show,” filed for bankruptcy in October 2006.

The FCC discarded the policy in 1985 after deciding that it restricted journalistic freedom and “actually inhibit[ed] the presentation of controversial issues of public importance, to the detriment of the public and in degradation of the editorial prerogative of broadcast journalists,” according to a Congressional Research Service report.

SEC. 9. FCC AUTHORITIES.

(a) Clarification of General Powers.—Title III of the Communications Act of 1934 is amended by inserting after section 303 (47 U.S.C. 303) the following new section:

``SEC. 303B. CLARIFICATION OF GENERAL POWERS.

``(a) Certain Affirmative Actions Required.—The Commission shall take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.

``(b) Construction.—Nothing in section 303A shall be construed to limit the authority of the Commission regarding matters unrelated to a requirement that broadcasters present or ascertain opposing viewpoints on issues of public importance.’’.

(b) Severability.—Notwithstanding section 7(a), if any provision of section 2(a)(1), 2(b)(1), or 3 or any amendment made by those sections is declared or held invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the amendment made by subsection (a) and the application of such amendment to any other person or circumstance shall not be affected by such holding.

888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

SEC. 10. FAIRNESS DOCTRINE PROHIBITED.

(a) Limitation on General Powers: Fairness Doctrine.—Title III of the Communications Act of 1934 is amended by inserting after section 303 (47 U.S.C. 303) the following new section:

``SEC. 303A. LIMITATION ON GENERAL POWERS: FAIRNESS DOCTRINE.

``Notwithstanding section 303 or any other provision of this Act or any other Act authorizing the Commission to prescribe rules, regulations, policies, doctrines, standards, guidelines, or other requirements, the Commission shall not have the authority to prescribe any rule, regulation, policy, doctrine, standard, guideline, or other requirement that has the purpose or effect of reinstating or repromulgating (in whole or in part)—

``(1) the requirement that broadcasters present or ascertain opposing viewpoints on issues of public importance, commonly referred to as the `Fairness Doctrine’, as repealed in In re Complaint of Syracuse Peace Council against Television Station WTVH, Syracuse New York, 2 FCC Rcd. 5043 (1987); or

``(2) any similar requirement that broadcasters meet programming quotas or guidelines for issues of public importance.’’.

scroll to near the bottom of page:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r111:9:./temp/~r111IeKJwl:e309814:

Should this actually get passed...does Rush move to satellite?

To ask the question is to reveal the bankruptcy of the attack on syndicated radio. There is no "bandwidth scarcity" - there wasn't actually as much of one when the FCC was instituted as was claimed, and with modern technology there is a whole lot less of one now.
Any effort by the Democrats to undermine Rush's operations would be transparently partisan, which the Constitution and the First Amendment were crafted to prevent. The way to read the Constitution is that the government had no authority to censor communications, even without the First Amendment. What the First Amendment actually does is to provide mere examples of government behavior which the body of the Constitution already did not authorize. Thus communication - even in the form of smearing chocolate on a nude body - has been held to be constitutionally protected, irrespective of the fact that "chocolate" is not mentioned in the First Amendment.
Think of it this way: after the ratification of the Civil War amendments, race has been held to be a suspect category. I.e., the government is under suspicion of discriminating against people of different races than the president of the US. Well, the First Amendment creates suspect categories of its own - the government is under suspicion of persecuting Christians (and/or other religious people), it is under suspicion of censoring communications, and it is under suspicion of persecuting peaceful assemblies of people critical of the government. And if people can be put in the position of having to prove their innocence of racial discrimination, the government would be mighty uncomfortable trying to explain to SCOTUS (only 4 of whose current members voted to uphold McCain-Feingold) that a change of the rules of radio licensing which caused the most prominent critic of the president and of the majorities in the House and Senate to lose his soap box was not intended to violate the right of the people to listen to him if they wanna, on the same terms to which they are accustomed.

the government would be mighty uncomfortable trying to explain to SCOTUS (only 4 of whose current members voted to uphold McCain-Feingold) that a change of the rules of radio licensing which caused the most prominent critic of the president and of the majorities in the House and Senate to lose his soap box was not intended to violate the right of the people to listen to him if they wanna, on the same terms to which they are accustomed.

Every critical statement any Democrat had ever made about any conservative talk show host would be damning evidence in such a case, and there are plenty of them.
The terms to which we are accustomed to listen to Rush if we want to are that we collectively buy enough Select Comfort Beds, GM cars, Carbonite subscriptions, etc. to motivate the advertisers to pay Rush's "confiscatory advertising rates." And that we have an AM radio and are in range of a station which carries his program. The money we pay for the advertised products is no different from the money people pay to buy books or newspapers.

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