WWW- Senior Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia is expected to force the Senate Commerce Committee into a series of votes regarding indecency legislation later this spring.
Rockefeller and Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas have jointly introduced the new indecency legislation. The bill is seeking to expand indecency regulations to also include violent content under the same set of regulations that indecent content comes under. In addition, the bill seeks to codify the existing rules regarding television for children.
Currently, the FCC and the courts have specified that programming is indecent if it "in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium." To protect children, material defined as indecent may be aired only between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
In the mean time, legislation that seeks to increase the fines for indecent speech is currently stuck in the Senate. The legislation would raise the company fine for indecency from $32,500 to $500,000 and the fine for an individual entertainer from $11,000 to $500,000. The House has already passed the bill that also removes a previous FCC provision that required individuals be warned prior to the issuing of a fine.
Industry executives questioned whether the new legislation would gain any traction, even if Rockefeller did force a recorded senate vote.
