NRB Files with FCC on
Closed Captioning
Profile of Power:
Barbara Ledeen
Who's Right, Who's
Left?
What You Can Do to
Stop Indecency!
Washington
is Watching:
NJ Ruling on Gay
Marriage
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Executive Summary
Frank Wright, Ph.D.,
President/CEO
October 27, 2006 Vol. I, Iss. 6
 I
spent part of Wednesday on Capitol Hill, meeting with our Government Relations
Director Bob Powers and a number of other interesting people. With so much
focus on Members of Congress right now, we tend to forget that Hill staffers are
really the pivotal players in the legislative branch. People like Barbara Ledeen,
who is highlighted in this week’s exclusive Profile of Power, are the
ones who get things done.
Most of Capitol Hill seems to be on edge right now. Of course, the election
surfaced in each discussion that I had on Wednesday. Everyone is speculating,
few have any real answers, and the polls change daily. The Republican Party, put
on the defensive for the first time in more than a decade, is running ads that focus
on the character – or lack of character – of those seeking political office. The
Democratic Party, meanwhile, is claiming the moral high ground for its
candidates and message.
So, whom do you trust? Who is right? It is certainly a time for prayer. While NRB does not endorse any particular candidate or political party, I do know that
if Congress changes hands, it will be more difficult for NRB to protect
religious broadcasters than it has ever been. We will see hate crimes
legislation pushed in both chambers of Congress, and threats to free religious
expression will increase. Efforts to define marriage between a man and a woman
will stall, and legal protection for civil unions will come to the fore because
no lawmaker wants to be labeled “intolerant” in today’s society.
Yet, the message of the Gospel is not a message of tolerance. It is a message of
love, hope, grace and forgiveness, by a God who does not “tolerate” sin on any
level in any of us.
What then, exactly, is our responsibility in the midst of such political
uncertainty? First, I believe that every American citizen has a responsibility
to vote. The blood of our forebears was spilled to guarantee this right to us.
Countless millions around the world would give anything to possess a right that
we take for granted.
Second, we must pray. Pray for your elected officials. Pray for those running in
your local and state election. Pray for everyone on the ballot, not just
for the individual you favor.
Finally, remember your priorities. First and foremost, you are a child of the
King. To whom do we owe our utmost allegiance? It is to God. When Jesus was
asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” (Mt. 22:35-40) He replied: “‘You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with
all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like
it: ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang
all the Law and the Prophets.”
Focus on those words. Love and seek God with all your heart, soul, and mind.
Love your neighbor. And as you labor on behalf of the Gospel, I encourage you to
also spend this next week praying and interceding, not just for our nation, but
for your community, church, family, friends, and neighbors.
Next Week on the Hill
The House and Senate are not in session. They will reconvene on
November 9th for the introduction of legislation, and
legislative work will resume on November 13, 2006.
Regulatory News
NRB
Filing with FCC on Closed Captioning
This coming Monday, NRB will be filing with
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a formal “Opposition” to the
request of several advocacy groups to have the FCC review, and then reverse, the
policy of permitting non-profit television broadcasters (many of whom are
religious broadcasters) to obtain exemptions from costly closed-captioning
requirements. Congress established the captioning requirement, but also enabled
the FCC to apply “undue burden” exemptions for broadcasters who could show
financial difficulty in paying for TV captioning. Over 200 religious
broadcasters have been granted such exemptions. Now, six advocacy groups for the
hearing impaired have filed a demand that the policy be reversed, alleging that
the FCC may have violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by
favoring religious organizations.
NRB’s response, to be filed by President/CEO Dr. Frank Wright, and Sr. Vice
President and General Counsel Craig Parshall, will argue that the FCC policy is
consistent with Congress’ expressed intent, and further, that Supreme Court
decisions are clear that when government agencies grant exemptions which are
religion-neutral on their face, the mere fact that many recipients who benefit
from those exemptions that are religious ministries does not violate the
so-called “separation of church and state.”
Profile of Power
 An
Exclusive NRB Interview:
Barbara Ledeen, Director of Coalitions, Senate Republican Conference
“Accomplish Everything As Fast As You Can”
When Barbara
Ledeen walked into the room, she was fired up. With a pivotal
election less than two-weeks away, she was clearly concerned about
voter turnout in the state of Pennsylvania.
“Every single conservative needs to vote,” she said. And she meant
everyone. Clearly there were no excuses for sitting at home.
As the Director of Coalitions for the Senate Republican Conference (SRC),
Ledeen holds an immensely important staff position in the Senate. It
requires the heart of a lion, the stealth of a cat, and the courage
of young David fighting Goliath. Barbara Ledeen has it all, in
spades. As SRC Chairman, Sen. Rick Santorum is her boss.
You get the sense that Ledeen has always been a strong woman who
knows her mind and who will tell it to you straight with no
equivocation. Yet, Ledeen’s journey to the flank of the staunchly
conservative junior Senator from Pennsylvania was anything but
traditional.
“I was to the left of the Democrats,” she said of her early years,
“soul mates with David Horowitz.”
After earning a BA in Political Science from Beloit College in
Wisconsin, Ledeen moved to Europe. She ended up in Italy working as
an administrative officer for the Zambian Embassy, when she met Michael Ledeen. He was a history professor who was writing a book on the
origins of fascism.
She and Michael married and set up their home in Italy, while
Michael continued to research the similarities between the European
and Russian Communist Parties. It was this research that eventually
led them to leave Italy and move back to the United States. They had
a young child and felt the political climate had become too
dangerous to stay. One gets the sense that Michael and Barbara Ledeen simply knew too much.
After returning to the States, Ledeen said she initially stayed home with
their daughter at first, and soon discovered that Americans viewed
full-time motherhood very differently than the Italians.
“In Italy, no one would ever, ever say, ‘What do you do?’ I was the
wife of the professor, and that was enough.” You were expected to be
witty and charming, she reminisced, but the Italians revered
full-time motherhood. In the States, everything seemed different.
Ledeen was determined to raise her own children and was horrified
by the results of feminism. “Only poor people were expected to put
their children in daycare,” she said. Others had nannies, and the
feminist movement seemed to have turned on women. “One day I said to
myself, ‘What happened to the feminist movement?’ It became
misogynistic; that did it for me.”
While still mulling over the failures of feminism, Ledeen began
working part-time as a copy editor for Biblical Archaeology
Review. “It was run by another mom out of her basement,” she
said. The job suited Ledeen’s commitment to never put her own
children into daycare. Then something monumental happened.
Prominent people like David Horowitz began to publicly claim “second
thoughts,” and to say they were done with the ‘Left’ and were going to
support Ronald Reagan. A lot of the friends that Ledeen and her
husband shared were making the same decision. “So, we decided to
support Ronald Reagan,” she said. “It was an evolution – an organic
thing. You learn things as you grow up.”
During the Reagan years, Ledeen worked as the Director of
Communication for the Defense Technology Security Administration.
“We were keeping technology away from the Soviets,” she said of her
cold-war job. It was clear that she not only loved that job, but
also gained a critical understanding of national security issues
while serving the Defense Department.
Through the years, Ledeen’s concerns about feminism did not wane. In
1992, she was part of a small group of women who founded the
Independent Women’s Forum (IWF). They included such luminaries as
Barbara Olson, wife of then-U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson,
and an author and formidable lawyer in her own right. Ledeen’s eyes
got misty when she mentioned Olson, who was on Flight 77, the
American Airlines plane that slammed into the Pentagon on September
11, 2001. The two Barbaras had been close.
Ledeen was IWF’s first Executive Director, and stayed with the
organization for eight years. In the 1990’s, she was one of only a
small handful of people who began bringing the widespread, horrible
truths of human trafficking to the attention of lawmakers. It
was during her many lobbying meetings on this and other issues that Ledeen met Mark Rodgers.
Rodgers told Ledeen that Senator Rick Santorum wanted to run for the
chairmanship of the Senate Republican Conference (SRC) if he won
re-election in 2000. He asked if she was interested in heading up
coalitions for the SRC. Ledeen was very interested. When Senator
Santorum won re-election and became Chairman of the SRC, Ledeen’s
phone rang. She joined Santorum’s staff and never looked back.
“The SRC didn’t do much prior to Rick’s chairmanship,” said Ledeen.
“Rick turned it into the messaging arm.” Today, the Conference has
three communications people who are dedicated to getting out the
message, and Ledeen is the middleman between the Senator and outside
organizations. “Rick represents the Conference,” she
stressed, “and so must represent their agreed upon issues.” She
noted, however, that with Santorum’s “guidance and devotion,” the
SRC has become much more.
By devotion, Ledeen was referring to a number of issues in which
Santorum has taken the lead. “Rick isn’t on the Foreign Relations
Committee, the Intelligence Committee, or the Armed Services
Committee,” she noted, “but he has put himself on the front line
because of two things: the failure of communication by the White
House, and the threat to national security.” When questioned, she
explained that it was Senator Santorum who insisted that the pre-war
Iraqi documents of Saddam Hussein be declassified and posted
on the Internet.** “Saddam’s documents discussed weapons of mass
destruction, terrorist training camps, etc.,” said Ledeen. Why
hasn’t the White House drawn attention to these documents? She is
baffled.
When asked about her greatest accomplishment as the coalition
builder for the SRC, Ledeen was thoughtful: “The confirmation of two
Supreme Court justices [took place] on my watch. Also, we have saved a lot of
lives – in all kinds of contexts.” She cites patients at Walter
Reed Hospital in Bethesda, MD, as well as people around the
world, who are being persecuted, like translators who worked for the
U.S. military in Afghanistan. “They would have been beheaded,” she
said, if not for the involvement of Senator Santorum.
For example, Santorum was the Senator who started a Congressional
Working Group on Religious Liberty, and Ledeen noted that he has
devoted two full-time staffers in his personal office to work on
these issues. This is a meeting that NRB's Bob Powers attends on
behalf of the Association. Ledeen is proud of Senator Santorum’s
work on the Iran Freedom & Support Act, which supplies
legislative aid for the democratic forces in Iran. It suits her
personal neo-con philosophy. “We’re helping the same way that Reagan
supported Solidarity. Only Rick did this!” she
stressed. “Everyone opposed it but we got it done, and he’s not even
on the [security] committees!”
So, why would Senator Santorum go out on this limb? “He does it
because it’s the right thing to do, not because he’s going to get
votes. He has stepped up. If Rick [loses the up-coming election and]
is not in [Senate] Leadership meetings, no one will step up.”
It would be a double-loss for the country, says Ledeen. Not only
would conservatives be “losing Rick,” but they would also be “losing
Rick in Leadership.”
There was an obvious question that begged to be asked. In the 2004
election, some conservatives in Pennsylvania became extremely
disenchanted with Senator Santorum when he campaigned for the
state’s senior senator, Arlen Specter. Specter is liberal on social
issues, but the Republican Party wanted to keep the seat. To many,
Santorum became the sacrificial lamb, campaigning for someone whose
deepest values he did not share. What did Barbara think?
Her eyes flashed. “Arlen Specter has done more for Rick Santorum in
this election than any of those people,” she said, meaning those
conservatives who might be thinking about sitting out this election.
As the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “Specter got two
terrific people on the bench. And he has told the Jewish population
to vote for Rick. Specter and Santorum even have a stem cell bill
[S.2754]. “Nobody works harder in the U.S. Senate for
conservative values than Rick Santorum. If [Pennsylvania
conservatives] get Casey, they will deserve him."
When asked about the most difficult part of her job, Barbara
laughed. “I’m not a patient person,” she said. “I see what needs to
get done, and it’s difficult to work with people that don’t see it.
That’s one thing I learned from Barbara Olson – you have to
accomplish everything as fast as you can because you never know.”
Indeed.
“I think I also bring a very Jewish perspective to my job,” said
Ledeen. “There’s a Hebrew saying, Tikkun Olam, which means
‘for the good of the world.’ It’s our concept of social justice. I
haven’t changed my views of social justice from when I was a lefty.”
And Ledeen clearly believes that conservative values should fully
encompass issues of social justice.
She has raised her children with the same values. “I’m a Jewish mom
of three,” she said, “and all three serve. My daughter is at the
Department of Defense, my son, who is a cum laude graduate of Rice,
is in the Marine Corps, and my other son is a sophomore at Rice,
serving in the NROTC.” She is clearly proud, not only of her
children, but of their dedication to this country and its security.
Like most mothers, it may be her children that have, in part, shaped
Barbara’s concern about the future. As the SRC’s Director of
Coalitions, she has also worked on the Marriage Amendment.
“Religious liberty is the key issue of our time,” said Barbara, and
“marriage is the domestic religious liberty issue. I come from 5,000
years of persecution – it’s in our DNA – and we know persecution as
soon as we see it.”
She is concerned, however, that Christians are slow to recognize the
signs around them. “There are two things that Christians don’t get,”
said Ledeen. “They don’t understand that three Christian little
girls beheaded on their way to school in Indonesia impacts someone
in Iowa. And they don’t understand that the point of attacking
marriage – from the left – is to remove the non-profit status and
drive churches out of business. [The left believes] ‘You are
preaching hate!’ It’s really a religious liberty debate.”
[Interview
conducted and written by Laurel A. MacLeod. Interview with Barbara
J. Ledeen, Director of Coalition, in the offices of the Senate
Republican Conference, United States Senate, Washington, D.C.,
October 25, 2006.]
** The declassified Iraqi documents referenced in this article can
be accessed at
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/index.html. Click on “Operation
Iraqi Freedom Documents.”
Washington
Whispers
Who Is Right and Who is Left?
Are you wondering which candidates are being supported by the
political right and the political left in the upcoming election?
Well, it’s no longer just a matter of “Right” and “Left.” For
example, the Political Action Committee (PAC) attached to Moveon.org
has a detailed list of the “progressive candidates” they are
supporting. (Go to
www.moveon.org, “Campaigns: 06 endorsements” to see the
individuals being supported by MoveOn.org Political Action.) On
another end of the political spectrum, the RightMarch.com PAC lists
the candidates they support. (Go to
www.rightmarch.com/pac/). Yet theirs is a much smaller
list because the Rightmarch.com PAC says pointedly that they do not
support any “RINOs”. (That term means “Republican in Name Only” for
the uninitiated.) The younger set might be interested in the
campaign videos, from a variety of political perspectives, on
YouTube. (Go to
www.YouTube.org, “Categories,” “News & Blogs.”)
So, what about the Republicans and Democrats? To see the Republican
slate, go to
www.RNC.org, click on “State Parties” then select your
state. For Democratic candidates, go to
www.dnc.org, click on “local” then choose your state.
Every one of these sites has a different agenda but, except for YouTube, they have one thing in common: they are registering voters
for November 7th.
Fight Back!
Of all
people, religious broadcasters are aware of the power of the
airwaves and the power of the Internet, but did you know that you
don’t have to put up with pornographic spam on your computer? You
can fight back by logging a complaint with the Internet site
www.ObscenityCrimes.org, and your complaint will be
forwarded to federal prosecutors.
According to the “Make a Complaint” section of this website,
“ObscenityCrimes.org was created primarily for citizens who have
been unintentionally exposed to pornography or ads for pornography
on the Internet, or whose children have been exposed to pornography
or ads for pornography on the Internet.”
Washington is Watching
On Wednesday afternoon, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3
decision that refused to call homosexual partnerships “marriage.”
However, the ruling gave New Jersey’s legislature 180 days to create
a legal mechanism to recognize homosexual partnerships in the same
practical ways that heterosexual marriages are legally recognized.
Realizing that the word “marriage” in now indelibly part of the
culture war, the seven justices were split on who should decide if
the word “marriage” applies to homosexual partners. The four-person
majority said legislators should decide; the three dissenting
justices said the courts should decide. That’s a pretty narrow
margin.
Key staffers at the highest levels on Capitol Hill were watching
this decision very carefully. This latest state court ruling, along
with the general tenor of the upcoming election, foreshadows the
ways in which the 110th Congress will be expected to deal
with the issue of “marriage” from a policy perspective.
[Adam
Liptak, “New Jersey’s Justices Agree on All but the ‘M’ Word,”
NY/Region, October 26, 2006,
www.nytimes.]
Working to Keep the Doors of Electronic
Media Open for the Gospel
Legislative/Regulatory Summary
Since the 109th Congress is drawing to a close, we have chosen to
highlight several key pieces of legislation on which the NRB Government
Relations office has been working during the last two years. Some of
the bills have passed and some are still waiting for a hopeful vote
this year.
Legislation Related to Religious Freedom
Public
Expression of Religion Act of 2005
(PERA)
Bill
Number: H.R. 2679
Sponsor: Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN)
Cosponsors: 56
In 1976, Congress passed the Civil
Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act, intended to help a citizen
sue any public official who had deprived them of their
constitutional rights. Since most people do not have the financial
resources that public entities often have at their disposal, this
important legislation leveled the proverbial playing field for the
average citizen, by requiring the losing party to pay the attorney’s
fees for both sides. Thus, if a court of law determined that a
public official had deprived an individual of their constitutional
rights, that official (or the entity he represented) would be
financially liable for all attorneys fees – an incentive to not
abuse the rights of individual citizens.
In recent years, however, organizations like the ACLU have turned
this law on its head, using it to threaten public officials who dare
to express religious beliefs or display memorials with religious
imagery. Just the fear of a costly lawsuit has had a chilling effect
on many public entities, keeping them from putting up the Ten
Commandments or erecting a nativity scene in a public forum. A good
example is Los Angeles County. In 2004 the ACLU claimed that the
presence of a tiny cross in the County Seal constituted an
establishment of religion and threatened the constitutional rights
of Los Angeles County citizens. Fearing the huge attorney’s fees
that might result from the threatened ACLU suit, the Los Angeles
Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to remove the cross. H.R. 2679 would
amend the Civil Rights Attorney Fees Act of 1976 (42 USC
Section 1988) by removing the authority of judges to award attorney
fees to the ACLU, or anyone else, under the Establishment Clause if
they win. Though federal judges would still possess the power to
impose “injunctive relief,” ordering the government to cease an
activity that was found to be illegal, removing the incentive of
attorneys fees in Establishment Clause cases would permit those
kinds of lawsuits to be heard fairly, in open court, rather than
pressuring public entitles to settle out of court because of
financial fears.
The
Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005 was passed by the
full House of Representatives on September 26, 2006, by a vote of
244 to 173.
Conference Report of the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2007
Bill Number: H.R. 5122
This bill authorizes, but does not fund, Department of Defense
programs for the fiscal year 2007. NRB has been supporting a
provision in the House version of H.R. 5122 that allows military
chaplains to read prayers without fear of reprisal from higher
commands. The amendment in question reads: Each chaplain shall
have the prerogative to pray according to the dictates of the
chaplain’s own conscience, except as must be limited by military
necessity, with any such limitation being imposed in the least
restrictive manner feasible. This amendment was offered in
response to new military regulations on prayer that many felt were
far too restrictive.
A great deal of debate has centered around whether a military
chaplain should be allowed, for example, to pray “In Jesus Name”
anywhere but in a chapel service. Some argue that invoking the
specific name of Christ is insensitive to the faith traditions of
others who may be present at an event where a prayer has been
requested. Yet those who have supported the House amendment maintain
that it is important, not just for protestant evangelical
Christians, but for the chaplains of other faith traditions to be
able to pray according to their faith and conscience.
Conference Committee negotiations have been delicate for several
weeks, and the pressure on the House Conferees to remove or
significantly alter this amendment was enormous. In fact, in an
unusual move, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
Sen. John Warner (R-VA), went to the Senate Floor on September 19,
2006, to argue that this language should be stripped out of H.R.
5122 and debated by the entire Congress, instead. He also quoted
the document his committee had received from the Secretary of
Defense, outlining the DOD position on each portion of the bill.
With respect to the prayer language, “The Department of Defense
position,” said Sen. Warner, “is that they oppose this provision.
This [DOD statement] reads as follows: ‘This provision could
marginalize chaplains who, in exercising their conscience, generate
discomfort at mandatory formations. Such erosion of unit cohesion is
avoided by the Military's present insistence on inclusive prayer at
interfaith gatherings – something the House legislation would
operate against.’" By contrast, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA),
the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and several
other House Members, remained adamant that the language should
remain in the bill.
The House prayer language created a stalemate in the Conference
negotiations, and a compromise was eventually reached that stripped
the prayer language out of the bill. Instead, old language was
inserted, reverting prayer by military Chaplains to earlier,
less-restrictive regulations. Senator Warner has vowed to hold
hearing on this issue when Congress reconvenes in January, 2007.
On September 29, 2006, the conferees signed the Conference Report of
the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007
(H.R. 5122) and Chairman Hunter filed it. The full House passed it
393-23 later that evening, and the Senate agreed to the Conference
Report by Unanimous Consent on September 30, 2006.
[Sen. Warner’s Statement on House Chaplain’s Provision, September
19, 2006,
www.senate.gov/~warner/; John
Donnelly, CQ Today, “Vote of Defense Authorization Deal
Likely After Hastert Drops Demands,” September 28, 2006, 11:22 p.m.]
Legislation Related to Indecency/Obscenity
Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005
Bill Numbers: H.R. 310 and S. 193
Sponsors: Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS)
Cosponsors: House – 67; Senate – 27
Under previous law, radio or television broadcasts between the hours
of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. could not contain any indecent material. If
indecency was found, the FCC could levy fines up to $27,500 per
incident. But, when Janet Jackson’s now famous “wardrobe
malfunction” reverberated around the world in early 2004, the issue
of indecency during traditional family viewing hours reverberated
through Congress.
In response, Sen. Sam Brownback introduced legislation to further
deter broadcasters from allowing indecent material to air during
family viewing hours, by increasing the fines for an
indecent/obscene broadcast from $27,500 to a maximum of $325,000 per
violation. Rep. Upton’s bill called for an increase to $500,000 per
violation. On May 18, 2006, Sen. Brownback’s bill passed the Senate
by unanimous consent. On June 7, 2006, it was sent to the House
Floor (instead of the Upton version) and passed by a vote of
379-35.
President George W. Bush signed the
Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act into law on June 15, 2006.
Legislation Related to the Digital Television Transition
Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005
Sponsor: Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)
This legislation was originally intended as a stand-alone bill. The
“discussion draft” (Capitol Hill-speak for “tell us what you
think,”) was released on May 23, 2005 and set a hard, fixed deadline
of December 31, 2008, for the cessation of analog broadcasting.
Earlier this year, the Digital Television Transition and Public
Safety Act of 2005 was signed into law. It set February 17,
2009, as the final deadline for the analog to digital conversion,
recommended a converter box coupon program, and appointed the
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to
administer the transition program. Under the umbrella of the
Commerce Department, the NTIA is the President’s “principle advisor
on telecommunications and information policy issues” with a stated
mission of promoting “market-based policies which lower prices to
consumers and encourage innovation…”
The House Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee held a
hearing on May 26, 2005, and parts of the bill passed in both the
House and the Senate after being placed in the Deficit Reduction
Act of 2005 (H.R. 4241 and S. 1932).
February 17, 2009 was set as the final
deadline for an end to analog broadcasting, and the Deficit
Reduction Act of 2005 was signed into law on February 8, 2006.
Legislation Related to Association Health Plans
Small
Business Health Fairness Act of 2005
Bill Numbers: H.R. 525 and S. 406
Sponsors: Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
Second Senate Version:
Health Insurance Market Place Modernization and Affordability
Act of 2005
Bill Number: S.
1955Sponsor: Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY)
Provision of health insurance is an ongoing concern for most
Americans, especially those who work for small businesses. In both
the 108th and 109th Congress, Sen. Olympia
Snow (R-ME) introduced legislation that would amend the
Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). In
the 109th Congress, Sen. Snowe’s bill, S. 406, made
amendments to the portion of ERISA that establishes rules governing
association health plans, allowing more access and choice for small
business employers with respect to medical care for their employees.
(This would have included trade associations like the NRB.)
During the committee process, Sen. Snowe’s bill was replaced by a
similar bill, S. 1955, introduced by Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY).
The House version of the Small
Business Health Fairness Act of 2005 passed on July 26, 2005, by
a vote of 263-165. The Enzi version (renamed the Health Insurance
Market Place Modernization and Affordability Act of 2005) failed
in the Senate by a vote of 55-43 on May 11, 2006.
Telecommunications Legislation
House Version: Communications, Opportunity, Promotion &
Enhancement Act of 2006
Senate Version: Communications, Consumers' Choice,
and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006
Bill Number: H.R. 5252
Sponsor: Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX)
Cosponsors: 55 (House)
This lengthy piece of legislation addresses a wide variety of issues
and is essentially a communications reform bill. It allows any group
or person to obtain a national franchise to enter the cable market –
most notably allowing telecom companies to enter the video franchise
marketplace. It also keeps cable operators who have a national
franchise from denying access to their cable services to any group
of potential subscribers simply because of their income. Finally,
the House version, which passed the full House on June 8, 2006, by a
vote of 321-101, excluded well-defined language on Net Neutrality
and Multicast Must-Carry.
The Senate version of this bill includes several amendments that
were originally stand-alone pieces of legislation. For example,
portions of the Wireless Innovation Act of 2006, first
introduced as S. 2327 by Sen. George Allen (R-VA), were added to the
Communications, Consumers' Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act
of 2006 during a Senate Commerce Committee mark-up on June 28,
2006. This would include a directive for the FCC to facilitate the
development of wireless broadband Internet access by allocating
otherwise unassigned or unused areas within the broadcast spectrum,
commonly called “white spaces.” Not only must the FCC issue a final
order, but they must “1) permit unlicensed, non-exclusive use of
unassigned, non-licensed television broadcast channels between 54MHz
and 698 MHz; 2) establish technical guidelines and requirements for
the offering of unlicensed services in such a band to protect
incumbent licensed services and licensees from harmful interference;
and 3) require unlicensed devices operating in such a band to comply
with existing certification processes.” A second amendment by Sen.
Allen banned access taxes on the Internet, by permanently extending
the Internet Tax Moratorium.
Another piece of stand-alone legislation, The Local Community
Radio Act of 2006 (S. 312), also passed as an amendment to the
Senate Communications Reform Bill during the same July 28th
mark-up. Originally introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in
February of 2006, this new amendment, offered jointly with Sen.
Maria Cantwell (D-WA), promoted low-power FM radio stations. Sen.
McCain calls such stations, which usually reach an audience within a
short range of the station’s transmitter, a “vital source of
information during local or national emergencies,” and heralds them
as an inexpensive method of “adding another voice to a consolidated
radio market.” [Press
Release,
www.mccain.senate.gov, 6/28/06]
The Communications, Consumers' Choice, and Broadband Deployment
Act of 2006 was passed by the Senate Commerce Committee on June
28, 2006, “in the nature of a substitute” and it awaits passage by
the full Senate. To date, the Senate
leadership has not scheduled floor action for this legislation.
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