McCain, Feingold tackle broadcast time for candidates By Sarita Chourey News-Chronicle WASHINGTON - Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold and Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain are teaming up again - this time to revive a campaign finance measure that would change the way television airtime is sold to candidates. But Feingold said taking on the powerful broadcasting industry with the Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act won't be easy. "It's like the other (McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform) bill," Feingold said. "It took us seven years to amass it, to build a foundation. People realize that what we did on (McCain-Feingold) is important to eliminate unlimited contributions, but it doesn't solve the problem of the cost of television, which is the biggest element of campaigns and causes a lot of people to be excluded from being able to effectively run. "Sen. (Dick) Durbin (D-Ill.) has replaced Sen. (Robert) Toricelli (D-N.J.) as the third main author, and I don't know who else we'll get." Toricelli dropped out of his reelection race in 2002 after an ethics flap over his improper acceptance of gifts and money. But the August recess will provide senators time to gear up for the uphill challenge when they return in September. The recess starts today for the Senate and began a week earlier for the House. A study presented to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, chaired by McCain, found that over a seven-week period 56 percent of the top-rated half-hour news broadcasts did not contain a single story about political campaigns. Conducted by the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and the University of Wisconsin-Madison's political science department, it also found that of the percent of broadcasts that contained campaign coverage, the average campaign story was 89 seconds long. And when campaign stories did air, only 28 percent contained stories in which a candidate's average sound bite lasted 12 seconds. The bill would set up a voucher system financed by broadcasters, which could be used for political advertisements on radio and television broadcast stations. It would require broadcast licensees to air a minimum of two hours per week of candidate-centered or issue-centered programming before a primary or general federal election. Another aspect of the legislation - likely to rile the broadcasting industry - would require broadcast television and radio stations to provide candidates and parties with an advertising time at the lowest rate provided to any other advertiser. Green heralding Do-Not-Call list As of last week, more than 28 million phone numbers were registered on the National Do-Not-Call list, and Rep. Mark Green, R-Green Bay, says that means it's time to start using the system. In October, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and each state will begin enforcing the national Do-Not-Call list. Consumers who add their numbers to the list are able to avoid telemarketers who badger millions of Americans at all hours. "I expect this number to climb even higher as more and more folks begin enjoying evenings free of annoying sales calls. Home is a special place - one meant for spending time with family and relaxing," Green said last week. The national Do-Not-Call registry is comparable to the list in Wisconsin that prohibits telemarketers from calling certain residential phone numbers. However, while the Wisconsin No-Call list registers numbers for two years, the national registry allows people five years of protection. "I plan on signing up for both lists - and if these calls are bothering you, I would encourage you to do the same," Green said. Last February, both the House and Senate passed the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act, which allowed consumers to opt out of telemarketing calls by adding their names to the registry maintained by the FTC. President Bush signed it into law in March. Chourey is WisPolitics.com's Washington correspondent. She works for The Hill, a twice-weekly newspaper that covers Congress. Her column appears here Mondays.