Iowa’s Senators split their votes on a resolution that would strike down new F-C-C media ownership rules. Democrat Senator Tom Harkin says the rules go too far and would allow “massive over-consolidation” of newspapers and broadcast stations. Republican Senator Charles Grassley voted against the resolution.Grassley says it would like he’s supporting the F-C-C, but Grassley says he voted the way he did because the resolution was the wrong way to go about striking down the rules. He says it takes a meat ax approach to cutting the regulations. Grassley says some of the F-C-C proposals are O.K., but he is opposed to the idea of expanding media ownership. Grassley says he opposes the move to go from a 35 percent to a 45 percent media ownership cap. President Bush has pledged to strike down any effort by Congress to change the new F-C-C rules, and Republican leaders in the U.S. House have refused to allow a vote on the issue. However, a band of Democrats in the House is devising a strategy to force a vote. A federal appeals court has already delayed implementation of the new media ownership rules.
