From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv

One of the great contributions of Justice Antonin Scalia to American
law was the rejection of so-called legislative history as an
untrustworthy guide to congressional intent, and MondayAs column by
former Representative Tom Delay is a good example of why.

Writing more than two decades after the law at issue, the byzantine Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004, was adopted, Delay relays his
memory of one particular provision in the hopes of guiding the Federal Communications Commission to his preferred outcome on a forthcoming
vote on the national television ownership rule.

That regulation, which handicaps local broadcasters in their economic competition with Big Tech and cable, prevents a single company from
owning multiple stations that collectively reach more than a specified percentage of the American population. The percentage has fluctuated
over time u in 2004, Congress directed the FCC to amend its rules to
set the number at 39%, the provision Delay describes.

As is obvious, Netflix and Amazon suffer no such artificial limit on
their reach. They can sell their streaming services to 100% of American households, which makes them heavyweights when bidding to put more
nationally broadcast sporting events behind paywalls, when a television station owner can never reach less than half as many homes.

These cartels want to keep their competition limited by law, and so
theyAre resurrecting has-been congressmen in support of their version
of the legislative history. Friends of reforming the rules could just
as easily point to an op-ed by three former chairmen of the House
Energy & Commerce Committee supporting the FCCAs modification of the
rule. They could further highlight statements by the current committee chairman and the telecom subcommittee chairman calling for the FCC to
loosen the rule.

But that simply exposes the flaw at the root of the enterprise:
determining the law is not about sifting the opinions of various
members of Congress who wrote the statute. Otherwise law becomes an
exercise in olooking over a crowd at a cocktail party and picking out
oneAs friends,o which is just an invitation to judicial policymaking in disguise.

Scalia would have none of that, and so he insisted that we look at the
text of the law itself. As former FCC general counsel Tom Johnson and
FCC practitioner Joel Thayer have both pointed out, the law itself is
very clear: Congress in 2004 directed the FCC to amend its rules. In
doing so, Congress left it in the FCCAs hands for the future because
the FCC retains authority over its own rules. Some might say Congress
slapped a short-term compromise on the issue with a long-term fix in
the future resting with the FCC. But itAs not about what some might
say, or what others might remember. We donAt make law based on the recollections of those who were in the room where it happened. Justice
Scalia taught us to just read the law in and of itself u that the best expression of CongressAs intention is the words that Congress enacted.

Here, those words clearly leave the issue in the CommissionAs hands for
future rulemaking. Two decades later, the short-term band-aid is no
longer holding u the Commission should use its authority to give
broadcasters a fighting chance on a level playing field with cable and
Big Tech.
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Democrats and the liberal media hate President Trump more than they
love this country.

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