You may remember a few weeks back when Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) introduced an amendment to a bill concerning … well, we won’t tell you just what that bill was about just yet. DeMint’s amendment is the important part. It bans the Fairness Doctrine. And the U.S. Senate was all for it … as an amendment. (It passed 87-11.)
Well, now DeMint has thrown his support behind a new amendment — this one to the Omnibus Appropriations bill — banning the FCC from instituting the Fairness Doctrine.
In a press release announcing his support of the new amendent, DeMint mentions his previous amendment. Here’s what he says:
“We won an important victory when the Senate voted to ban the Fairness Doctrine, but it hasn’t become law yet and the fight is not over. As we have seen with the emergence of the new Durbin Doctrine that attacks free speech through backdoor FCC regulations, we know many on the left have no intentions to abandon their efforts to censor talk radio. Senator Thune’s amendment is necessary to ensure the Fairness Doctrine cannot be implemented this year and I applaud his stand for free speech,” said Senator DeMint.
Here’s the thing: the bill that DeMint’s original amendment is attached to has no chance of passing. And more likely than not, DeMint knows it. (And if it doesn’t know it, quite honestly, he’s a maroon.) See, the bill is the DC Voting Rights bill, and it gives the District of Columbia a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Which is unconstitutional.
So when DeMint says “it hasn’t become law yet,” well, he knows that it will never become law. And all of the jibberjabber about the Fairness Doctrine, when it comes to the D.C. Voting Rights bill, is just grandstanding. It’s a whole lot of talking about something that will never happen.
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