As you are probably aware, Senator Martinez’ resignation required Governor Crist to appoint a Floridian to serve out his 16-month term. I was honored to be one of the 10 Floridians the Governor interviewed. I was doubly honored when many of you contacted the Governor and suggested that in this time of national crisis my experience, record and legislative success in the Congress was the most important factor to consider. In fact, I was prepared to introduce “The Healthcare Infrastructure Expansion Act” which would have had bi-partisan support. Thanks for your confidence. I was not selected but want to thank the Governor for the opportunity and wish George LeMieux the best.

I served on the Commerce Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives for 10 years, eight years of which I was on the Communications Sub-Committee. This was an interesting period of time, as AT&T had a virtual monopoly on phone services and had introduced legislation to eliminate what little competition was left. There was also continual debate about the effectiveness of the Equal Time and Fairness Doctrine in the Federal Communications Act. Simply put the Equal Time provision said that if a broadcaster gave free time to a political candidate that the same time would have to be offered to a candidate of another persuasion. There were penalties for the stations who did not follow this rule. What it meant in the real world was that most broadcasters would not give “free time” to a party or a person, as they were worried about violating the rule; being subject to a monetary penalty and putting their license in jeopardy at renewal time. Many of us believed that the Equal Time provision of the Federal Communications Code was a “no time” provision.

Another section of the Code was the Fairness Doctrine, where stations were supposed to ensure that both sides of controversial issues had the same approximate air time. This brought government into an extremely strong supervisory role infringing on the First Amendment rights of free speech. These rules did not make any sense and I was pleased when some years later they were repealed. Now some Democratic members are trying to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine on the basis that the Republicans have more talk political radio programs than the Democrats.

The Federal Communications Commission has recently appointed a new Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd. Lloyd served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and helped author a paper entitled The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. In it he pointed out that “91% of the total weekday talk radio program is conservative and 9% progressive.” The paper went on to point out that every weekday 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on the top five commercial stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk.
 
Thank goodness for the First Amendment. After all these years of being on the wrong side of major media coverage it is interesting that the Republicans now have a leg up on the radio. It is worrisome to think that the answer to this is government control of radio stations and programs. Any government intervention is wrong and is also unconstitutional.

Each of us can make our own decision as to whether we listen to political talk radio, who we listen to, and how much of it we believe. Each show has its own bias which is not hard to figure out. When I teach high school and college, I tell the students to put up a red flag when people start talking in broad generalities. I tell the students to try to figure out what they mean and not let them hide behind labels.

Political talk radio is an important part of our national debate, as are newspapers, bloggers, and cable and television stations. The First Amendment is not out of date; it protects free speech which is essential to a free, healthy and strong democracy.

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Lou Frey represented East and Central Florida in the U. S. Congress from 1969 to 1979.  He was the fourth Republican elected to Congress from Florida since the late 1800's.  In his last election, he received nearly 80% of the vote.  He was one of five elected Republican leaders in the House of Representatives during the 93^rd and 94^th Congress.  He served on...