ARRL BOARD CONFIDENTIAL
MEMORANDUM
To: Officers, Directors and Vice Directors
From: Mike Lisenco, N2YBB and Chris Imlay, W3KD
Re: H.R. 1301 and S. 1685
Date: November 20, 2015
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While you all have heard by now of the favorable outcome for S.1685 with respect to the Senate Commerce Committee markup, the details of this, its actual impact, and the future prognosis of both Bills have not been adequately explained. Because there is a bit of a lull now that the Senate markup is done and while we are waiting for the House to mark up H.R. 1301, we can finally consider where our legislative effort is headed and where we have been recently.
The past few weeks have been by far the busiest in our legislative effort. During that time we have had to be reactive, as well as proactive, on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. The two of us made four extremely full days of office visits in October to both the Senate and the House sides to continue our forward progress on obtaining House cosponsors, and to get some more support in the Senate. Principally, we had received word of the impending "fly-in" of CAI members for briefings at the Crystal City Marriott on October 27 and Congressional meetings on the Hill on October 28th. CAI now claims to have visited 65 offices with 55 participants in the one day they were there. It is possible that they did that many meetings on one day, because from ARRL’s side, the two of us alone hit 20 offices on ARRL’s behalf in the 2 days when CAI was in town. It is apparent that CAI has become very afraid very quickly at our success. Thanks to The Keelen Group for doing a fine job scheduling our October meetings (they have been doing a magnificent job of scheduling meetings for ARRL visits all year). The intent of the October meetings was to maximize the chance to offset CAI propaganda. Our meetings with Senators and Representatives were scheduled every half-hour with almost no breaks. As there is no substitute for these meetings, we had to keep them going.
With almost no exceptions, we encountered no pushback from the staff members we met with. There was not a lot of evidence of any CAI presence or having been “beat to the punch” at the offices we visited. The same was true with the 15 meetings Mike did just yesterday on the House side. Overall, our perception is that CAI has been unable to get HOA members to respond to their urgent calls for help defeating our Bills. One of their missives warned their members that Congressional offices have heard from a lot of hams, but not from HOAs. CAI, whether for the purpose of sounding an alarm in order to boost their membership or just to show that they are working hard for HOAs, chose the low road in their lobbying: they literally lied about the effect of our Bill on HOA jurisdiction and what would be called for in the way of an Amateur Radio antenna in any given deed-restricted community. And that lying has had an effect in a few instances that is harmful to us. Representative Culberson of Texas became a CAI proponent, and his Deputy Chief of Staff gave us a terrible meeting. Since then, with a lot of work by David Woolweaver and constituent hams, we have blunted this by speaking to other staff in Culberson’s office. But CAI’s lying about our bill (such as their claim that the FCC preemption policy would mandate 60-foot towers without any HOA jurisdiction to oppose them) has created the obligation to constantly debunk CAI. We have done that with staff every time we have encountered it, but often damage is done. Those of you who heard Senator Bill Nelson’s really strange and inaccurate remarks during the hearing heard the effect of HOAs parroting the CAI misstatements, and you saw first-hand the effect of false propaganda. Keep in mind that it is relatively easy to defeat a bill and exceptionally difficult to pass one.
Nevertheless, the many days of meetings that we had on the Senate side have resulted in our out-lobbying CAI and we have bolstered the cosponsor list on the House side. The letters from ARRL members have done wonders. Our meetings have been greatly facilitated by those letters. As we have noted in the past, telling House and Senate members how many hams there are in the Districts and States serves no purpose, and in fact is counterproductive, if those House and Senate members have not heard from many (or any) hams. It makes it look as though our Bill is unimportant to them. Now that the letters have started to flow, after a slowing down of cosponsors jumping on the bandwagon at summers end, the total on the House side was upped to 114 and we obtained the first additional Senate cosponsor in Al Franken and the second in Kansas Senator Jerry Moran.
During our October visits, we met with the majority senior staff of the Senate Commerce Committee who informed us that a mark-up of S. 1685 was tentatively scheduled for Nov. 18, 2015. This date was confirmed a few days later by Senator Blumenthal’s office. Shortly thereafter, the scheduled mark-up became public knowledge and CAI push-back began in earnest for the first time. It wasn't unexpected, and it wasn’t surprising that CAI’s effort resonated with Senate Commerce Committee members from Florida and Hawaii, two states with a very large number of HOAs.
Prior to the mark-up, CAI approached Crystal Tully in Senator Wicker’s office and she referred their Virginia-based lobbyist to Chris to try to reach some common ground. The guy did call Chris and offered a meeting after the CAI fly-in, but never followed up with a meeting request. It is assumed that he called because Crystal told him to, but CAI has not shown any initiative to reach an understanding with ARRL. During the call from CAI’s lobbyist, Chris said that ARRL would be pleased to talk with them, but that we wanted CAI to stop making serious misrepresentations about what the Bill did and did not contain. We received no response. Ironically, as the bill came closer to mark-up, CAI’s lobbyist, in a blatant effort to derail the bill and prevent it from mark-up, told the minority staff in the Commerce Committee office that we never responded to CAI’s effort. Frank McCarthy of TKG, at that same meeting, immediately produced our email correspondence which made it clear that CAI was not to be trusted to assert facts accurately.
Just before the markup, both Senator Wicker’s and Senator Blumenthal’s staffs were asking us for memos and materials that would help them address questions from other Senators’ offices and to counter CAI’s negative propaganda campaign. Chris was constantly being asked for "white papers" that were sent to the requesting parties that were used to explain what the bill was really about. We were able to explain to almost all involved how rational our bill is and how irrational CAI was being.
Two days before the markup, we received word that CAI was offering an amendment to the Senate Bill that would satisfy all. We got the amendment text from Senator Blumenthal’s staff. CAI’s offered amendment was discussed in a memo sent by Chris to all concerned (copy attached). Commerce Committee minority ranking member, Florida Senator Nelson's office, and Senator Daines' office let us know that they were unhappy with the Bill and considered offering CAI’s amendment Bill. We were able to address the concerns of Senator Daines of Montana, who decided to support S.1685 once we were able to explain its contents. We were in discussions with Sen. Nelson's staff for several days, and we thought that he might be persuaded to come around because the minority staff people were former FCC staff well-known to Chris, and there was an effective dialog about the Bill at an in-person meeting involving Frank McCarthy of TKG. However, the minority staff stopped returning Frank’s calls on Monday, at which time it became clear that Senator Nelson was not going to support us. In listening to what he had to say at the mark-up, it is very clear to us that he doesn't understand the details of the bill. The one surprise at the mark-up was Sen. Schatz (D-HI). Our prior discussions with his staff were very positive, but unbeknownst to us, the staffer we had been dealing with left the job on Nov. 11th. It is not clear whether or not Schatz based his decision at the last minute after listening to Sen. Nelson.
Where do we go from here?
As to the House, we now have 114 cosponsors. Yesterday, Mike visited 15 more offices that ARRL has not yet visited. TKG will advise after meeting with House subcommittee staff as to how they (the House Energy and Commerce Committee) want to proceed. We were told by Josh Baggett of Representative Kinzinger’s office most recently that Kinzinger’s preference is to mark up the Bill in the House and that they will do what they can to get H. R. 1301 on the next markup calendar in the House. If that is done, then the Bill can thereafter be considered on the House Floor without debate, a hearing, or a report, by means of a procedure referred to as “suspension” (i.e. suspension of the normal procedural rules). The Bill could pass very quickly by that method. If marked up, a Bill considered “on suspension” requires only a majority of those voting at the time. If the Bill is considered on suspension not having been marked up, it requires a 2/3rds affirmative vote. We anticipate that the House Bill will be favorably reported out of Committee and that it will then at some point, probably after the first of the year, be passed on suspension and sent to the Senate.
As to the Senate, that's a whole different story. They could “hotline” S. 1685. That is a process similar to the House’s “suspension” procedure, but in the Senate, hotlining a Bill requires in effect unanimous consent. If even one Senator decides to place the bill on “hold”, the process fails. The next option is to bring the Bill up for debate on the Senate floor, but then it could be amended to death or simply voted down. According to Senator Blumenthal’s office, it “will be hard to get Floor time for this Bill”. Another option is to attach it to a “must pass” bill in the Senate. There are so few of those these days that there may not be a vehicle that could work in this instance. There may be other options that we are so far unaware of, but we will pursue this with Senator Wicker’s staff and Senator Blumenthal’s staff.
Frank McCarthy has suggested that ARRL and CAI representatives meet with Wicker’s and Blumenthal’s staff to clear up CAI’s misunderstandings and completely counter the misrepresentations that have clouded the judgment of Senator Nelson. Since Senator Nelson is the ranking (minority) member, this would go a long way to assure passage of the bill.
By the way, the recent call for input from the constituencies of the various committee members was a crucial component of our success. While some Board members have stepped up to the plate and knocked the ball out of the park, others haven't even come into the on-deck circle. It is imperative that when we are asked by Congress to provide constituent input that it be done and done quickly. HQ is in the process of setting up an online service that fully automates the email process. Like our constituent letters printed out at hamfests, all the ARRL member will need to do is input their call sign, choose the template, and click on send. This will be a major help to us in the coming days. But more important is that this should become a true team effort. Coming into D.C. for meetings is important, but it's not the be-all and end-all. What is, however, is your leadership within your Division. Get the word out and follow up with your members. As you know, we all have the capability of sending email directly to members in specific congressional districts or to senators by State. Use it please! We are getting really close.
73 de Mike N2YBB and Chris W3KD
