JSA Rider's Bipartisan Backing May Secure Its Presence in Omnibus Funding Bill
Senior appropriators on Capitol Hill may wrap in at least one key FCC-related policy rider into the FY 2016 omnibus funding bill -- a rider that would grandfather in broadcaster joint sales agreements from before the agency limited them in March 2014. One Republican Senate staffer told us Friday that he still hopes the proposal can become part of the omnibus legislation under negotiation now and potentially voted into law this week, and sees little reason why it couldn’t be.
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The JSA proposal has senior backers of both parties. The rider was included on a bicameral and bipartisan basis in earlier FY 2016 Financial Services appropriations bills. Those funding measures never advanced, and appropriators have been working for weeks to craft a new FY 2016 omnibus package, after passage of a two-year budget deal that resulted in higher spending caps than during the earlier Financial Services measures' development. One source of contention has been what riders to include. Senior Hill Democrats and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest slammed and repeated their opposition to ideological riders last week. The JSA rider and a bicameral net neutrality rider that would prohibit rate regulation have received substantial attention and debate in recent weeks.
Government funding expired Friday, and both chambers of Congress have advanced a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of Wednesday. Appropriators hope to post an omnibus agreement by Monday and set up votes early next week.
The Republican Senate staffer disputed that the JSA rider amounts to a poison pill that would derail agreement on the omnibus. Far more politically divisive issues are the source of intense negotiation by appropriators now, the staffer argued. He pointed to the proposal’s “heavy hitter” backers on both sides of the political aisle. Backers for the JSA proposal include Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and members of Democratic Senate leadership Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., third-ranking Democrat expected to become next Democratic leader in the coming Congress, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the caucus’s whip. All three are co-sponsors of the standalone measure, S-1182, to accomplish the same goal as the rider. Democratic leadership and Mikulski are widely seen as crucial players in the negotiating underway now in crafting the omnibus and decisions on policy riders.
“That bill was voted out of the Commerce Committee this year, and it was voted out of the Appropriations Committee,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., told us Thursday. “I was the sponsor, but both Mikulski and Schumer were co-sponsors. So it’s got pretty good sponsors.” Blunt’s S-1182 touts nine co-sponsors altogether, five Democrats and four Republicans. “I couldn’t predict” whether the proposal does become attached to the omnibus, Blunt said, unsure of how staffers were prioritizing the proposal in the negotiation process. Blunt, a member of GOP leadership, told us this summer he believed the proposal had momentum to receive a presidential signature by year’s end (see 1508100034).
House Republicans and Democrats also back the proposal as a standalone measure. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., introduced HR-3148 as a companion to Blunt’s bill and has four Democratic and three GOP co-sponsors, including Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. “We’d obviously be happy to see it included, but we do not know if it will be or not,” a spokesman for Shimkus told us of the possibility of a JSA rider on the omnibus. A broadcast industry official stressed that not only Republicans back the idea of grandfathering JSAs and said that every FCC chairman for the last decade, Republican and Democrat, has approved such business agreements. Broadcasters have made business plans accordingly, and to advance this measure is a matter of fairness, the official insisted. On the House Appropriations Committee, several Democrats were fine with the proposal during a June markup vote of 38-11 in favor of the amendment accepting the JSA rider.
Democrats on both chambers’ Commerce committees have shown less sympathy for the idea. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., announced fierce opposition early this month to attaching the rider to the omnibus (see 1512030046). Senate Commerce lawmakers including ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., were opponents in the 14-10 partisan committee markup vote of Blunt’s bill (see 1506250043). The idea of grandfathering JSAs has provoked ongoing opposition from groups including Free Press and Public Knowledge. The proposal would have “an adverse impact on media diversity,” groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause, Communications Workers of America, NAACP and National Hispanic Media Coalition told Hill leaders in a Nov. 3 letter, slamming the idea of wrapping the rider into a funding bill.
“It’s bad policy,” Public Knowledge senior staff attorney John Bergmayer told us Friday of the possible rider. Chris Lewis, PK vice president-government affairs, said Mikulski is “driving it” from the Democratic side of the aisle. “We've been focused on opposing all policy riders at this point,” Lewis said.