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Senate Approves Measure to Undo FCC Rules
fortheloveofjava writes "The Washington Post says here that the Senate voted 55 to 40 today to wipe out all of the Federal Communication Commission's controversial new media rules, employing a little used legislative tool for overturning agency regulations. If you signed the MOVEON.org petition, an image of part of it is visible here with sponsoring senators Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS)."
The FCC has lawmaking power because Congress gave it to them. Legislative delegations of rulemaking authority to federal administrative agencies happen all the time; it's the same reason why the FTC is empowered create a do-not-call list and require telemarketers to pay a fine if they don't abide by it. In each case, the agency is exercising authority delegated to it by the legislature. Nothing new there.
The more interesting issue, IMHO, is why it's so hard for Congress to overturn an agency rule with which it disagrees. It used to be that you didn't have to pass a law to overturn an agency regulation; you could just have one house of Congress issue a so-called "legislative veto." If that was still the law, then today's Senate vote would have been enough to overturn the FCC. However, the Supreme Court has said you can't have a one-house legislative veto. So if the FCC makes a rule with which Congress disagrees, Congress has to pass a new law overturning the rule. Cumbersome, but that's how the Court has said you have to do it.
[insert randomly selected declaration of absolutist meta-moderation philosophy here]
That's right. I generally happens every 10 years (in Texas at least).
The last time it happened, the situation had to be settled by a district court judge. That was in 2001.
Now the Texas Republicans want to redistrict again. They didn't like the last result so they're changing parliamentary rules in order to get their plan shoved through. This is all at the behest of the Bush Whitehouse.
It is not normal to redistrict every 2 years. This is what you do when you want to guarantee getting elected, because you've fscked the economy up so much that you can't get enough of the popular vote to carry you into office.
It's a bit like getting your brother to block minorities from voting in the state that he's running.
State Police headlight checks in minority neighbourhoods near the polling station on election day? Perfectly normal.
Scrubbing thousands of citizens from the voting rolls because their name sounds like that of a convicted felon in another state? Nothing to see here.
Stupid fsck.