As we reported yesterday, the Senate along with the House officially introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act. News leaked yesterday that the Senate would announce the new bill, but we should have known all along that Mike Pence was behind it. Congressman Mike Pence, (R) Indiana, spoke on the floor of the House today in an elegant and straight forward manner. Congressman Pence was supported during his speech by Senators Coleman, Thune, and Congressman Walden. Pence explained that the Broadcaster Freedom Act would prevent any future administration from regulating the radio airwaves without an act of Congress.

Here is the transcript of the speech from Congressman Mike Pence:

The American people love a fair fight and so do I. And in the debate over America’s future, we especially want to hear all the facts and all the arguments on every side of the issue. Unfortunately, some in our nation’s Capitol want to achieve that result by bringing back what is known as the Fairness Doctrine, an archaic government regulation imposed by the Federal Communications Commission for decades that required broadcasters to present controversial issues in a fair and balanced manner.

Now, that sounds acceptable enough but there is nothing really fair about the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine is a relic of America’s broadcasting past and it should stay where it belongs, on the ash heap of broadcast history.

Fortunately, two weeks ago 309 Republicans and Democrats in the Congress voted in favor of the Pence Amendment to prevent the FCC from reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine for one year. But while I was pleased with the bipartisan passage of this legislation, today we must open a second front to ensure that the Fairness Doctrine can never come back again.

Today, in cooperation with colleagues in the House and Senators Norm Coleman, Jim DeMint and John Thune, we will unveil the Broadcaster Freedom Act, which will prevent this or any future administration from once again regulating the airwaves of America without an act of Congress.

I urge my colleagues on both side of the aisle: Join me in cosponsoring the Broadcaster Freedom Act and preserve the free airwaves of America.”

For the record, the actual language of the Broadcaster Freedom Act seems to prevent any new legislation that is similar to the Fairness Doctrine. It really bans the FCC from following the Fairness Doctrine, or other similar legislation the liberals may try to force on us in the future.

Here is some of the relevant text from the Broadcaster Freedom Act:

“…the Commission shall not have the authority to prescribe any rule, regulation, policy, doctrine, standard, or other requirement that has the purpose or effect of reinstating or repopulating (in whole or in part) the requirement that broadcasters present opposing viewpoints on controversial issues of public importance, commonly referred to as the ‘Fairness Doctrine’,…”.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Broadcaster Freedom Act News, Fairness Doctrine News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.