April 2014

Republican officials and their allies, reviewing the Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance, say they now have ammunition for additional challenges to restrictions on political contributions and may press to strike down all limits on donations to candidates and political parties.

Motivated by the ruling in their favor, GOP lawyers and conservative advocates are discussing whether to bring lawsuits that would seek to permit companies and labor unions to donate directly to candidates for Congress and the White House; allow the Republican and Democratic parties to accept unlimited donations; and raise the current $10,000 cap on yearly donations to state political parties. "The political parties are going to take a hard look at some of the more extreme provisions of [the campaign-finance rules] to see if those provisions can withstand review" by the court, said Bobby Burchfield, a longtime GOP campaign-finance lawyer.

Nearly three years ago, Liberty Media had grand ambitions to acquire Barnes & Noble, before settling for a big stake. Now it appears that the media conglomerate has had enough. Liberty announced that it would sell almost its entire position in Barnes & Noble, the nation’s last major bookstore chain, removing one of the company’s major backers as it struggles to compete with Amazon and navigate the shifting landscape for books and media. In 2011, Liberty had paid $204 million for a 17 percent stake in the bookseller. After the latest move, Liberty will have just under a 2 percent stake. The loss of a major shareholder is the latest setback for Barnes & Noble, which has closed dozens of stores and has trouble fulfilling its digital ambitions.

The Federal Communications Commission approved two items that use innovative approaches to free up spectrum for broadband.

One order utilizes spectrum sharing in the AWS-3 band to make airwaves currently used by government available for flexible, commercial use. Another order is taking 100 MHz of unlicensed spectrum in the 5 GHz band that was barely usable -- and not usable at all outdoors -- and transforming it into space that is fully usable for Wi-Fi.

Building on this work, the theme of the Commission’s April 23rd open meeting agenda will be “.” As evidenced by the AWS-3 order, spectrum sharing is a potentially revolutionary new approach that will allow us to derive greater value from the finite spectrum resource.

For consideration at our April open meeting, I am circulating proposed rules that are designed to make the 3.5 GHz band a test-bed for spectrum-sharing innovation. The proposal includes three tiers of prioritization: federal and non-federal incumbents, priority access licensees, and general authorized access users. It includes a single, highly flexible band plan, avoiding the analog trap of Balkanizing spectrum into sub-bands, each with its own sets of rules. The proposal also anticipates a wide range of flexible uses. Small cells will undoubtedly be a core use case, but we would not limit the band to such use. Finally, the proposal reflects economic incentives. The proposal would set up a flexible auction and licensing scheme that leverages the technical capabilities of a Spectrum Access System (SAS) database, which will function like a traffic cop for spectrum by assessing available spectrum so that it can be accessed by prioritized users. Phase I of the Connect America Fund has already provided more than $430 million to leverage tens of millions in additional private investment to deploy broadband to more than 1.6 million unserved Americans in 45 states. To put this into perspective, this reduces by about 10 percent the number of Americans without access to broadband. We must continue to move forward with the implementation of the CAF Phase II process, even as we reexamine our approach in light of marketplace and technological developments.

[Commentary] A federal media shield bill is moving to the Senate floor and neither political party is happy.

Conservative hawks are calling it another White House distraction from a failed foreign policy. Free speech advocates decry the government licensing of journalists. Many bloggers and web personalities are afraid the government's definition of "covered journalists" will have a chilling effect on efforts that many started only as an honorable response to scandals like the NSA leaks and IRS political targeting. If the bill does pass, the conflict between free speech and security won't end. It will, however, be a defining win for traditional news media in its fight with digital media organizations. But citizen journalism isn't a heroic calling. It's a contradiction in terms. Citizens have the right and responsibility to broadcast claims of criminality, but there is no substitute for professionals with defined standards. This bill sets the line between those who gather and share news (citizens), and those who gather and report (journalists). If anything, this bill effectively establishes "Reporting" as a proper noun. As a federal shield bill inches to the finish line, it's important for journalists to avoid overconfidence from a defining win. Instead, they must continue to look at ways to incorporate the best of both worlds. In the $60 billion news industry, no one wants to stifle free speech. That's why this bill has special exclusions for students and freelancers, as well as a process for judiciary-approved exemptions. It's just another necessary evil, like most everything going in or going out of Washington nowadays.

[Chase is Partner, Capitol Media Partners]