It's Time for Congress to Protect the First Amendment
Date: December 7, 2007
By: Rep. Trent Franks
InBuckeye.com
When the Federal Communications Commission began to lift the regulation of the Fairness Doctrine in 1985, broadcasters were freed to allow unregulated, vigorous discourse on controversial issues to flow on the public airwaves.
Today, many are again trying to claim that this absence of government intrusion into the public airwaves has caused debate to become stifled and one-sided. I would challenge proponents of that argument to explain the explosion in talk radio stations that has occurred since the 1980s— once numbering around 100 stations, to now around 2000.
There is nothing wrong with the idea of balance or "fairness" when making a case or discussing a controversial issue in the public arena. The problem arises when government feels it must be the one that decides what is fair, and not the American people.
Perhaps no single factor so affected the course of the birth of our republic more than the ability of our founders to engage in the free flow of ideas and impassioned debate. Freedom never would have been achieved if it had not first been discussed, and if those leading the American Revolution had not first possessed the courage to publicly challenge ideas once deemed incontrovertible.
Regardless of what other sectors government may seek to regulate, free speech should not be one of them.
Furthermore, we do not have to speculate as the true effect of the “Fairness” Doctrine because we have four decades of evidence that culminated in the abandonment of the doctrine in 1987, when the FCC under the Reagan Administration reached the conclusion that broadcasters’ fear of airing something controversial resulted in either stifled debate, or none at all.
There is only one reason that government bureaucrats are today seeking to reinstate this archaic regulation, and that is because they do not agree with the viewpoints expressed in the largely conservative shows that have helped to shape and define talk radio as we know it today.
As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, I have continued to reiterate that our responsibility as government officials should always be to protect and defend free speech, not to regulate it— regardless of which side of the debate we find ourselves.
To paraphrase an old saying: I may not agree with everything you say, but I will always defend your right to say it.
To that end, I am a cosponsor of a bill called the Broadcasters Freedom Act, which would permanently prohibit the FCC or future administration from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine in any form, other than through a direct act of Congress.
Despite the bill having over 200 cosponsors, Democratic leadership in the House has refused to bring it up for a vote. Consequently, 194 members of the House of Representatives have signed an unusual procedural motion called a discharge petition. Once the petition garners 218 signatures, leadership will be forced to allow an up-or-down vote on the measure.
The way to encourage a robust, flourishing economy is to stimulate free enterprise, innovation and entrepreneurship through individual freedom and empowerment— and minimal government intervention.
Likewise, the most effective way to stimulate robust, vigorous debate in the public airwaves is to lift the oppressive hand of arbitrary bureaucratic regulation and allow the independent free-flowing of American ideas that was so fundamental to our nation’s founding as to be codified in the First Amendment.
It seems self-evident that as a government, we should be more concerned with hearing the voice of the people rather than dictating what people should be allowed to hear. To all who value the precious right we know as freedom of speech, I urge you to contact your elected officials and urge them to sign onto the discharge petition to allow a vote on the bill banning the archaic Fairness Doctrine, once and for all.
