For Immediate Release
May 28, 2004

Contact:
Cindi Canary (312) 335-1767

MESSAGE FROM ILLINOIS HOUSE TO RADIO AND TV STATIONS: DO A BETTER JOB FOR DEMOCRACY!

The Illinois House of Representatives on Friday, May 28 endorsed federal legislation requiring all broadcasters to provide increased coverage of electoral campaigns during the weeks before elections

The House Resolution noted that the high cost of broadcast advertising has driven up the cost of running for political office at the same time that radio and television stations are reducing substantive coverage of candidates and campaign issues.

“The increased cost and reduced flow of campaign communication on broadcast television and radio has created an unfair advantage for wealthy candidates and candidates with access to monied special interests, an unhealthy development for our democracy,” according to House Resolution 79, which was sponsored by House Speaker Michael J. Madigan, D-Chicago.

HR 79 put the Illinois House on record in support of a proposal to require broadcasters, as part of the public interest obligation they incur when they receive a free broadcast license, to air at least two hours a week of candidate-centered or issue-centered programming during the period before elections.

“Voters deserve better information about candidates and ballot issues,” noted Cindi Canary, Director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, “Since broadcasters are voters’ leading source of information about candidates and issues, this is the best way to provide that information.”

HR 79 supports federal legislation sponsored by Senators John McCain, R-Arizona, Russell Feingold, D-Wisconsin, and Richard Durbin, D-Illinois. For more information about the federal proposal, visit the web site www.freeairtime.org of the Alliance for Better Campaigns.

Local broadcast television is the leading source of information about political campaigns in this country, and television advertising is by far the single largest expense in modern campaigns. Candidates, parties and issue groups spent more than $1 billion on political ads in 2002; meanwhile, the majority of top-rated local newscasts contained little campaign news in the weeks leading up to Election Day, according to a recent national study.

In Illinois’2004 U.S. Senate primary, Chicago stations alone received nearly $9 million from candidates purchasing time to air campaign commercials.

ICPR is a non-profit, non-partisan project that works to increase public awareness of how political campaigns are funded in Illinois and has worked with the Alliance for Better Campaigns in a national coalition of organizations working toward stronger public interest mandates for broadcasters.