AIBRIEF
The 39% national TV household cap is in federal statute. A former Republican House majority leader says the FCC has no authority to lift it.
The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday on Chairman Brendan Carr's plan to eliminate the 39% national TV household ownership cap, a limit Congress wrote into federal law in 1996. A former Republican House majority leader says the agency has no authority to lift it.
Tom DeLay (R-TX), who served as House majority leader from 2003 to 2005, made the case in a Daily Wire op-ed published Monday, as reported by Ars Technica. "I am a Republican. I support deregulation and the Trump administration. But my ultimate loyalty rests with the Constitution, which gives certain prerogatives to Congress," DeLay wrote. "Regulatory agencies cannot defy or modify laws enacted by Congress. If Chairman Carr wants to raise the statutory cap, he should ask Congress to pass a law giving him authority to do that."
The 39% cap is specified in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, not set by the FCC. The commission's strongest counterargument is that the cap is the agency's interpretation of the statute and can be revised by rulemaking. DeLay's op-ed directly rejects that read.
The vote is set for Thursday, August 6. Carr announced the plan roughly three weeks earlier. DeLay resigned from Congress in 2006 amid a campaign-finance case, was convicted in 2010, and had the conviction overturned by a Texas appeals court in 2013.