To be frank, I didn’t expect to be asked to testify at the XM-Sirius hearing – Public Knowledge hasn’t been much involved in media consolidation issues (unless you consider net neutrality to be one). But my indignation over the National Association of Broadcaster’s hypocrisy in opposing the merger and our concern that the merger could be conditioned on some sort of audio flag or other tech mandate for digital radio probably helped to get us the nod.

My written testimony discussed these issues, but a briefing document I received just prior to the hearing calling efforts to require the industry to pay a performance right to artists and recording companies a “tax Read more...

This week – in a big policy reversal -- the Bush Administration announced that the United States would join talks with Iran and Syria on the future of Iraq. It’s a decision that is long overdue. For a long time now, we’ve needed to engage in direct talks with these countries – if Ronald Reagan was prepared to talk with the "Evil Empire" surely we can talk directly with Iran and Syria.

Yes this is a positive development, but just pulling up a chair at the table isn’t a plan. The Administration not only needs to fully commit to talking directly to Iran and Syria, but we also have to do the diplomacy necessary in advance of these meetings to make them as fruitful as possible. And to test the Syrians and Iranians directly, as the Baker-Hamilton Commission suggested, we need to have an American strategy to get Syria and Iran's leaders to make their own strategic decision to change direction.

This war in Iraq will not be solved militarily. We need a political and diplomatic solution to end the violence and chaos there. I’ve long advocated convening a summit of Iraq and its neighbors. Last year I introduced a bill calling for a summit which Congress passed in September.

Our troops in Iraq have done their job, now it’s time for this Administration to back up their words with real diplomacy.

When Teresa Joyce and her coworkers at an AT&T Wireless call center in Lebanon, Virginia, tried to form a union four years ago, they wound up on the receiving end of threats and intimidation from their employer. "Once word reached management that we were trying to organize, they did everything they could to stop us from exercising our right to form a union," recalls Joyce. "Our supervisors constantly threatened that AT&T Wireless would leave our town and that we would lose our jobs." Some of her coworkers were fired because of their support for a union.

Then, when Cingular Wireless bought the call center, everything changed. Cingular agreed to let the employees decide for themselves whether to form a union. In 2005, a majority of workers signed cards authorizing a union, and as Cingular had promised, they got one. "Today, supervisors treat us with respect," says Joyce. "We've been able to bargain for fair wage increases and affordable health care benefits."

The purpose of the Employee Free Choice Act is to ensure that all workers have that same opportunity - if they choose - to join together to bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. The bill says that when a majority of workers sign cards authorizing a union, they get a union. Under current law, employers can veto a union even when workers choose one; the legislation would put a stop to that. Read more...

In this video Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) describes his stance on H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. He calls the legislation the "American Worker Compulsion Act" and says it "strips workers of their democratic rights to a secret ballot."

Our nation's veterans endured sacrifice and hardships in defending our freedom.  Now, these veterans’ personal data are insufficiently protected and subject to loss or theft.  The General Accounting Office, and the VA’s Office of the Inspector General have made recommendations to improve data security, and we enacted legislation last year to increase data security.  Yet, these breaches continue to occur.

That is why I want to see an outside audit and investigation on these security breaches to determine their extent and to identify practical safeguards.

I support the right of workers to organize as they see fit and have always supported collective bargaining rights.  For more than 70 years, Americans have unionized to fight for improved pay, better working conditions, and better overall treatment at the workplace.

But most importantly, I support the right of workers to choose whether they want to unionize in a fair, anonymous way free from intimidation and exploitation.  I want workers to base their choice on their personal views not under the coercion of either their employer or a union organizer.

Unfortunately, the “Employee Free Choice Act Read more...

Today, the House of Representatives considers H.R. 800, the “Employee Free Choice Act of 2007, Read more...

Yesterday, the House of Representatives unanimously passed H.R. 556, the National Security FIRST Act.  This legislation strengthens our national security by reforming the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) process by which the Federal Government reviews foreign direct investments in the United States for their national security implications.

The roots of this legislation developed a year ago, when the sale of management of six major U.S. ports to the government of Dubai created a firestorm and made all of us examine the way in which foreign direct investment is vetted for national security concerns.  As the floor vote yesterday demonstrates, we have developed legislation that protects our national security without avoiding a freeze of beneficial and safe economic activity.  I look forward to working with the coalition of House Members including Financial Services Chairman Frank (D-Mass.), Ranking Member Bachus (R-Ala.), Minority Whip Blunt (R-Mo.) and Representatives Pryce (R-Ohio) and Crowley (D-N.Y.) as the Senate develops their bill.  It is my hope that the overwhelming vote in the House yesterday is a sign of our ability to work across a broad spectrum of interests to develop a bill that the President can sign into law and which can appropriately reform the CFIUS process.