The Imperial Speakership - Chapter Two
There She Goes Again
By California Yankee Posted in Democrats | Featured Stories — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Not satisfied with insisting that the U.S. Air Force serve as the Speaker's official airline, Speaker Pelosi has decided that because she is the Speaker she is not bound by the House Rules.
The Speaker has started a blog to assist in carrying out her radical political agenda, including the "slow bleed strategy" designed to undermine the nation's foreign policy. The blog is part of the House Speaker's website. If you can stomach it, you can visit Pelosi's blog and scroll through post after post containing C-SPAN videos used to support the speaker's San Francisco values political agenda.
I don't begrudge the Imperial Speaker the right to bask in her Imperial glory, at least I wouldn't if she would play by the rules. Pelosi's use of C-SPAN video to further her political agenda is a gross violation of the House Rules of the 110th Congress [pdf file], rules the Speaker is charged with administering.
Rule V, 2, (c), (1) prohibits the use of recordings of House proceedings for any political purpose:
(c) Coverage made available under
this clause, including any recording
thereof—
(1) may not be used for any political
purpose;
Read on...
Perhaps Speaker Pelosi, like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, would like to govern by decree. If so she should at least follow his example and ask the legislature for permission to do so.
Unfortunately, Pelosi's abuse of C-SPAN video in violation of House Rule V, isn't new behavior on the part of Democrats. Sadly it is more evidence of party's culture of corruption. Does Pelosi think we have forgotten about Lamont's violation of House Rule V in his failed effort to replace then Democratic Senator Lieberman? Or perhaps she thinks if a lowly Senator wannabee can ignore the Rules, an emperor wannabee can as well.
Hat tip to Matt Margolis.
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The Imperial Speakership - Chapter Two 11 Comments (0 topical, 11 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
...try reading the link:
"The video of Lieberman was taken from C-SPAN, which does not permit its footage to be used in campaign commercials."
C-Span is just passing along the restriction imposed by the House rule. C-Span has no right itself to restrict usage of the footage. It does not own any copyright in the floor speeches, at all. As a U.S. government work, there is no copyright in the floor speeches. The only restriction on their usage is the House Rules. Because C-Span owns no copyright to the feed, it has no authority to prevent copying of the speeches or how those copies are used.
I posted on the House Rules violation at 3:21 this afternoon at Stubborn Facts. I e-mailed the RSC staffer who issued the erroneous copyright violation claim providing him with the proper information, but I haven't heard back from him yet. Also posted a comment at Beltway Blogroll which had picked up the story and run with it, only to have to post a correction after the copyright claim turned out to be erroneous.
The administrator of the Speaker's blog has stopped by my blog, according to SiteMeter, so they are aware of the issue now.
Nancy does not wear well on people.
Let her spew, rant and spam.
But CSPAN only is able to broadcast House proceedings by following the rule. It was the key to enabling the broadcasts, a bipartisan rule.
Just because CSPAN owns no copyright doesn't mean their product is 100% public domain, either. Anyone can reproduce the TEXT of House speeches and committee minutes, it is the actual vid that is restricted. CSPAN has an exclusive grant for that, and I presume the rules apply to anyone who uses their footage. If anyone can just TIVO their broadcast and use it any way they wish, the rules governing CSPAN's ability to have cameras on the floor have NO MEANING AT ALL, do they?
The reason for the "no political use" rule is that House and Senate members routinely make complete idiots of themselves by saying stupid stuff on the floor. This applies to both parties, because they are all basically idiots anyway. However, Members have the privilege to "revise and extend" their remarks for the Congressional Record, which serves two purposes: it means they don't have to actually say all that stuff about the JayCees in their district to get in on record, and they can recover their stupid mistakes and correct them for posterity.
Sure, nobody else gets to "take back" what they say, but that's Congress. Without that provision, there is no CSPAN.
Pelosi's use of the vids probably don't violate the letter of the rule, though. She isn't using them in campaign ads, she is only posting them on a blog, ostensibly to inform the public. Sure, it violates the "spirit" of the rule, but the "spirit" is meaningless. Had the House wished to incorporate this "spirit," they could have written the rule differently.
Hey, she's putting "Dollar Bill" Jefferson on the Homeland Security Committee. After that, CSPAN rules are small potatoes anyway.
C-Span doesn't own the cameras, Congress does. Congressional staff maintain and operate the cameras on the House floor. C-Span does not have an exclusive grant on the footage, any broadcaster who wants to may tap into the feed and air it.
But the rules are in fact written broadly; more than their "spirit" was violated. The rules contain a separate provision prohibiting use of the footage in commercial advertisements. The first prohibition is against use for any "political purpose." If the House had wanted to be less broad, it could have prohibited the use in any "political campaign" or in any "campaign commercial." Instead, they chose the broadest possible language, prohibiting any use of the footage for any political purpose whatsoever.
Let me say this one more time, since so many people seem confused. This is NOT C-Span's footage. It belongs to you and me, the American people. C-Span does not pay any money to obtain the footage (they also don't get any money from the government, by the way).
C-Span does own footage of committee hearings and the like, because that is captured by cameras owned and operated by C-Span. But on the House floor, there's no exclusive deal, there's no copyright, it's a free, tax-payer provided video stream.
Went to the blog site of her royal highness...
Comments are closed.
Why am I not surprised?
"Even when you fall on your face, you're still moving forward."
which is vague and unenforceable:
(c) Coverage made available under this clause, including any recording thereof—
(1) may not be used for any political purpose;
This is so vague it's meaningless. The very broadcasting of the coverage is a political purpose: to inform the public of political debate in congress.
But maybe what the congress meant by "political purpose" was "negative campaigning". In that case I guess the original broadcasts are non-political, and Pelosi's blogcast is just as non-political.
How can one argue that rebroadcast on her website is wrong if the original broadcast is ok?
Just because it's an asinine rule that is unenforceable against anyone who is not a Member of Congress (and I agree that it is asinine and largely unenforceable) doesn't mean it can or should be ignored... particularly by the official specifically responsible for enforcing the rules of the House.
So Pelosi apparently violted some House rule. How does that make her "imperial" in any way? And how in the world is she comparable to Hugo Chavez?
FTR, I am utterly indifferent to Pelosi and I suspect that her tenure as Speaker will be relatively short-lived. But this is nothing more than a gotcha.
There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why ... I dream of things that never were and ask why not. - Robert Kennedy
How can someone who is not a member of the House (Ned Lamont) be held accountable to a House rule?