The 2010 Political Season Starts Early - Texas Association of Broadcasters Webinar on Political Broadcasting
The 2010 political broadcasting season is almost upon us, with Texas leading the way. With the first 2010 primaries on March 2, candidates in Texas are already in windows during which they need to file the paperwork to qualify for a place on the primary ballot. Once they qualify for that ballot spot, they become "legally qualified candidates" in the eyes of the FCC, triggering reasonable access (for Federal candidates) and equal opportunities requirements. Soon after, broadcast stations in Texas need to start according lowest unit rates to candidates (Federal, state and local) in the primary - such rates to start on January 16. To help broadcasters prepare for the primary and the rest of the election season, David Oxenford and Bobby Baker, the head of the FCC's Office of Political Programming, conducted a webinar for the Texas Association of Broadcasters on December 2, 2009, originating from the TAB offices in Austin. The PowerPoint slides used in the presentation is available here. The Davis Wright Tremaine Political Broadcasting Guide that forms that basis of the TAB's political guide can be found here.
Texas will have an unusually active political season, with a primary election for Governor, where the State's sitting Governor's re-election is being challenged in his own party by one of the state's US Senators. Races for the Texas State legislature will also likely be a hotbed of activity as the state will be electing the legislators who preside over Congressional redistricting after the 2010 census - a process that was particularly controversial in Texas after the last census. Given the likely level of activity, broadcasters in Texas need to immediately start planning for the 2010 election and the obligations that it imposes on broadcasters. And broadcasters in the rest of the country should similarly be preparing, as these same issues will be arising for them very soon, and advertising sold now could well have an impact on their political rates later in 2010 (see information about the webinar that David and Bobby conducted for 13 other state broadcast associations here).
With all due respect, I must remind you that there are *THREE* candidates for Texas Governor, and Ms Debra Medina is the third candidate you failed to mention in your blog post. She is actively being excluded from the KERA debate between Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchinson, although she has met all criteria for being included. The 'equal opportunity' requirement that you state above is clearly being violated by KERA-TV and this needs to be addressed immediately by the FCC and TAB before the debate is aired. All three candidates should have an equal and fair opportunity to be heard in that debate on the 14th, and I hope that this will be rectified in a timely manner.
Texans deserve to see Medina in the gubernatorial debates. We are tired of certain elites imposing their limits on candidate exposure and thereby reducing the citizen's voting options to more of the same incompetency, privileged and underhanded administration of our finite resources.
Texans, and Texans alone should decide their governor.
Thank you in advance for your proper influence in this matter. Thank you for your decency.