It’s a good thing that 19 senators support the Local Radio Freedom Act. But the fact that the bill has three more House co-sponsors is fabulous and edges the bill closer to a very important benchmark.
The bill opposes “any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge” on local broadcast radio stations.
The three new House members who have signed on include Gregory Meeks (NY-5), Dan Newhouse (WA-4) and Marlin Stutzman (IN-3).
Their addition puts the co-sponsor tally at 199. That’s 199 members of the House unlikely to support the Far Play Fair Pay Act.
And it’s also 19 short of a solid 218 vote majority in the 435-member legislative body.
The use of co-sponsorships, while commonplace in the House, is not so widely used in the Senate, so nobody should read too much into the relatively smaller number of co-sponsors in that body.
