Court Opinion

ID: 9428482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:23:56.556354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:13.723823
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
In my judgment, the question whether a broadcast licensee has violated 47 U. S. C. § 312 (a)(7) by denying a political candidate reasonable access to broadcast time must be an*419swered in the context of an entire political campaign, rather than by focusing upon the licensee’s rejection of a single request for access. The licensee has a duty to act impartially and to make an adequate quantity of desirable time available. The performance of that duty cannot be evaluated adequately by focusing solely on particular requests or the particular needs of individual candidates. The approach the Federal Communications Commission has taken in this litigation, now adopted by the Court, creates an impermissible risk that the Commission’s evaluation of a given refusal by a licensee will be biased — or will appear to be biased — by the character of the office held by the candidate making the request.'"' Indeed, anyone who listened to the campaign rhetoric that was broadcast during 1980 must wonder how an impartial administrator could conclude that any Presidential candidate was denied “reasonable access” to the electronic media. That wonderment is not dispelled by anything said in the opinions for the majority of the Commission in this litigation.
In sum, I find Justice White’s analysis of the issue compelling. I accordingly join his opinion.

The possibility that Commission decisions under §312 (a) (7) may. appear to be biased is well illustrated by this litigation. In its initial decision and its decision on the networks’ petitions for reconsideration, the Commission voted 4-3 in favor of the Carter-Mondale Presidential Committee. See 74 F. C. C. 2d 631, 652, 653, 654 (1979). In both instances, the four Democratic Commissioners concluded that the networks had violated the statute by denying the Committee’s request for access; the three Republican Commissioners disagreed. See Federal Communications Commission, 45th Annual Report/Fiscal Year 1979, pp. 1-2, 86-87 (1980). See also 202 U. S. App. D. C. 369, 400-401, and n. 16, 629 F. 2d 1, 32-33, and n. 16 (1980) (Tamm, J., concurring).