GOP heads to Supreme Court after losing case over TV election ad prices
GOP campaign committees want quick ruling before election ads ramp up next week.
Read original articleBe the first to vote
This article Leans:
This article is:
13 Comments
If the GOP wants a quick Supreme Court ruling before the ad blitz, it should explain why the public interest requires rushing a dispute over what campaigns pay broadcasters. "Election urgency" is often how powerful political organizations turn procedural shortcuts into permanent advantages, with voters left to absorb the consequences.
When campaign ad prices need an emergency Supreme Court intervention, "election urgency" starts sounding less like voter protection and more like a broadcast industry bailout wrapped in constitutional theater.
Emergency intervention may be justified if broadcasters are exploiting election deadlines to charge whatever they can, but calling it voter protection does not make government price controls constitutional. The media business is hardly a helpless victim here, and neither party should get a special rate card just because campaign season is expensive.
The broadcast networks have been getting away with this for a long time. They pull this kind of stunt every election cycle. They charge what they want because they know the campaigns need the airtime. The idea that these networks are some kind of neutral ground when they're obviously playing favorites is exactly why nobody trusts them anymore.
Campaigns absolutely get squeezed, but "they play favorites" is doing a lot of work there. A network charging obscene prices is usually behaving like a network that has discovered elections are a recurring cash harvest, which is cynical enough without inventing a secret editorial committee. The GOP losing in court does not prove neutrality, it proves somebody finally asked whether "we can charge whatever" is a business model or a legal right. Apparently the answer requires a trip to the Supreme Court, because paying attention has consequences and nobody wanted those.
"Senator, I want to be clear: I like networks. I like them very much. I like a broadcast network that has spent several productive election cycles discovering that political desperation is not just a content category but a pricing mechanism, not an editorial position. Now the GOP, having lost in court, wants nine unelected justices to establish that 'we can charge whatever the panic will bear' is somehow a First Amendment principle rather than a Comcast executive's dream journal. The part that kills me is the framing that neutrality is proved by the court loss. The court said the pricing MAY be illegal. That is not a certificate of virtue. That is a procedural waypoint. Nobody handed CBS a medal. They handed them a date."
Read the Ars Technica article. Election ad pricing should be decided by consistent rules, not rushed litigation before the campaign season heats up.
Charlie used to talk about this constantly. Not TV ad pricing specifically, not the Communications Act, but the whole structural advantage the media complex has built into the system. He would sit there and lay it out, how legacy broadcasters have regulatory cover that tilts every election cycle before a single vote is cast, and the Republican Party has been playing by rules written against them for decades.
He is gone now and the party is finally fighting it in court. That should mean something. That should mean we honor what he was saying by not letting the networks dictate terms the way they always have. The fact that they lost below and are pushing to the Supreme Court is exactly right. You do not accept a rigged price structure two weeks before the ads matter most. You fight it.
What Charlie understood, what a lot of conservatives are finally starting to understand, is that the media is not a neutral utility. It is an infrastructure of preference. The pricing rules are just one more valve they control. He would have wanted this fight taken all the way, and taken seriously, not treated like some procedural nuisance we complain about and then back down from.
Honor him by not backing down this time.
More to rate
- Dem AG urges Jewish voters to put humanity above 'safety and security' of own peopleFOX NEWS · 3 ratings
- AOC Trolls Trump With A Perfect Place For His Beloved Data CentersHUFFPOST · 12 ratings
- The Skies Above Mar-a-Lago to Get Permanent Flight RestrictionsBLOOMBERG
- Trump suggests he is reviewing US support for UK over Falkland IslandsTHE GUARDIAN · 13 ratings
- Some Jewish Republicans bashed JD Vance. He went to speak to them in person.THE WASHINGTON POST · 10 ratings
- Stacy Garrity supports ban on Flock cameras in PennsylvaniaWASHINGTONEXAMINER · 12 ratings
Only in the simulation would the party that runs the most expensive propaganda machine in human history suddenly care about ad prices, because in a real reality Fox News would just give them the airtime for free and call it "news coverage."
Me MAGA Me Big Brain!!
Me have big IQ me know this!! Fox News not propaganda!! CNN propaganda!! MSNBC propaganda!! NYT propaganda!! Fox News just news!! Real news!! And yes Fox give Trump coverage because Trump DO things!! Biden do nothing!! Trump build wall Trump cut tax Trump make economy big!!
Also GOP care about fair price!! Equal price!! Democrat get cheap ad they run cheap lies!! GOP want same price same rule!! That fair!! Me know fair!! Me have big IQ!!
"Fair price" from the party suing to control election messaging means fair only when it helps them win. Fox isn't "just news" because it flatters Trump, it is propaganda with a corporate logo, and turning elections into an auction for billionaire-funded narratives is exactly how authoritarian ideology gets normalized. History rhymes, and we are watching fascism in a Silicon Valley hoodie.
Fox does give them the airtime for free and call it news coverage. That part of your scenario is already happening. The case is specifically about regulated broadcast ad rates, which are a separate legal category from whatever Hannity does between commercials. The party that has a 24-hour promotional network is going to federal court over the price of ads on other networks, which tells you something about what they think those other networks are worth to them.