Tom Ridge And The Fairness Doctrine

The GOP circular firing squad is aiming at Tom Ridge. As usual the GOP gets its history wrong and their media mouthpieces (in this case the Tribune-Review) omits some important data.

From Washington Monthly:

Arlen Specter left the Republican Party when Pennsylvania Republicans rejected his relative moderation. Pessimistic about Pat Toomey's chances, GOP leaders have been scrambling, looking for a credible Republican alternative.

It appears the party has rallied behind former Gov. Tom Ridge (R) as their new go-to guy. Ridge, a two-term chief executive and the first DHS Secretary, is probably the only Republican with a realistic shot at winning the statewide race.

Couple problems here:

There are, however, a couple of problems. First, Ridge lives in Maryland, not Pennsylvania, and as Rick Santorum can attest, Keystone State voters tend to care about whether their candidates live in the same state as they do.

Second, there's the inconvenient fact that Ridge isn't that much more conservative than Specter. If the party's far-right base found Specter intolerable, Ridge, whose pro-choice views were rumored to have kept him off the McCain ticket, may find himself vulnerable to attacks from the right.

First attack from the National Review Online:

We keep hearing again and again that Tom Ridge is a supporter of abortion rights and that he's less conservative than Pat Toomey. Both statements are correct. But just what kind of Congressman was he?

Fact is, it really depends on what year you're looking at. He moved from left to right over time. Near the end of his congressional career, as he prepared his gubernatorial run, Ridge was a 60-70 percent voter on the American Conservative Union's issues. Earlier on, he voted like a moderate Democrat, with ratings as low as the 30s.

A few key votes that Ridge took: He voted to expand welfare eligibility (1984), to fund abortions with public money, and in favor of the fairness doctrine (in 1987). Ridge voted against an early school choice program in 1992. He also voted for a number of union priorities — in 1988, he voted to re-hire the air traffic controllers who had gone toe-to-toe with President Reagan seven years earlier and lost. Ridge voted against SDI repeatedly, and against some tax cuts.

The bottom line is that as a member of Congress, Tom Ridge had a liberal streak that goes far beyond abortion. But his record still puts him to the right of Arlen Specter.

Note Ridge's shift towards the right over time - that Ridge began in Congress farther to the left than when he left it, according the writer of the piece, David Freddoso. But such subtlety is lost, obviously, on our friends on The Tribune-Review's editorial board. Take a look:

Writing at National Review Online, David Freddoso reminds that Tom Ridge, now talked up as a Republican challenger to Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter next year, might not be everybody's idea of a "conservative" but that his record is to the right of Mr. Specter. It will, however, be difficult for Republicans to forget Mr. Ridge's votes for the liberal-coddling Fairness Doctrine and repeated votes against missile defense. And that would make it tough sledding against the real conservative in the race — Republican Pat Toomey.

That pesky Fairness Doctrine. Note that Freddoso at least has the decency to point out when the votes were made. In this instance, The Trib's Editorial Board chose to omit the fact that the vote they so abhor occurred 22 years ago.

Here's something else they won't tell you. The Bill they're probably referring to was HR 1934, the "Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987." Here's the CRS Summary from thomas.loc.gov:

Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987 - Expresses the findings of the Congress that the Fairness Doctrine: (1) fairly reflects the statutory obligations of broadcasters; (2) received statutory approval from the Congress in 1959; and (3) reasonably balances first amendment rights.

Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to require broadcast licensees to provide a reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance. Requires enforcement and application of such requirement to be consistent with the rules and policies of the Federal Communications Commission in effect on January 1, 1987.

The bill had 71 cosponsors (though Ridge was not one of them). Among those cosponsors were:

• Robert Dornan (aka "B-1 Bob")
• Newt Gingrich
• Henry Hyde
  
• Trent Lott

I wonder why they didn't point that part out?