A battle over music royalties has pitted members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) against the owners of black radio stations, sparking a rare public fight between African-American powerbrokers that could work against lawmakers used to easy reelection.
The debate has become so intense that the NAACP, the civil rights group that has spent nearly a century advocating for black Americans, has stepped in to call for a truce.
Leading the charge against the lawmakers is Cathy Hughes, the founder and chairwoman of Radio One, the nation’s largest black-owned broadcast company.
She has aired a series of radio ads targeting black lawmakers, with the most recent round questioning the ethical integrity of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the chief sponsor of the legislation calling for radio stations to pay royalties to musical performers, and seeking to connect him to federal bribery-related charges to which his wife recently pleaded guilty.
The fight has divided the liberal civil rights community, with the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) supporting Conyers while black leaders such as the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson line up with Hughes, Radio One and other black-owned stations.
Radio One’s ads have also criticized Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
Sheila Jackson LeeDem lawmaker says Trump 'has in many respects become a dictator' Dems lay into Trump for taking a 'wrecking ball to the Constitution' Live coverage: House panel moves forward with Barr contempt vote MORE (D-Texas) and three other members of the CBC: Reps. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Robert “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.).
These lawmakers support Conyers’s legislation, which was approved in May by the Judiciary Committee and would require AM/FM radio stations to pay royalties to performers, such as Dionne Warwick, who didn’t compose some of their most popular songs.
Under current law, stations only pay copyright royalties to artists who compose hit songs, not those who perform them. Other media, such as satellite and Internet radio, must pay royalties to performers.
The owners say a law requiring them to pay additional royalties would bankrupt their stations.
The barrage has begun to take a toll on lawmakers who come from traditionally safe districts and are accustomed to cruising to reelection.
“We’ve been dealing with this for months now and it’s been creating a number of headaches when we want to focus on healthcare reform,” said Andy Phelan, communications director for Johnson. “It keeps churning and churning and churning. They’re running a lot of negative ads not just against my boss but Mr. Conyers, Mel Watt, Sheila Jackson Lee and Bobby Scott
Robert (Bobby) Cortez ScottNew name, same bad ideas: Democrats introduce union wish list Trump administration creates new religious, moral protections for health workers Labor Department official steps down amid ethics questions: report MORE.”
Radio One operates stations in or near the districts of Conyers, Jackson Lee, Johnson and Scott, according to its website.
In a new round of ads running on Radio One, Hughes highlights a recent ethics complaint filed against Conyers by the Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative watchdog group.
Hughes describes Conyers’s “role in writing a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency that supported a waste project tied to his wife, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery while she served on the Detroit City Council.”
Hughes then goes on to quote from the complaint: “John Conyers could not have written the letter without knowing something, and it is crucial that he be questioned under oath under penalty of perjury.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Hughes adds.
U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg, however, has said there is no evidence linking Conyers to his wife’s crime.
“The evidence offered no suggestion that United States Rep. John Conyers, Ms. Conyers’s husband, had any knowledge or role in Ms. Conyers’s illegal conduct, nor did the congressman attempt to influence this investigation in any way,” Berg said in a statement last month.
But Hughes isn’t limiting her fire to Conyers. She has also blasted Jackson Lee and other CBC members who are supporting the legislation.
“All five of these black elected officials continue to ignore the imminent danger to black media ownership,” Hughes says in an ad that criticizes Jackson Lee for claiming that Conyers’s bill would not force any black-owned stations out of business.
“How could she possibly know anything about what it takes or doesn’t take to operate a broadcast facility?” Hughes asks.
But supporters of Conyers’s bill argue that performers receive royalties for radio play in other countries, with the exceptions of North Korea, Iran and China.
The fight has intensified as the legislation has picked up momentum in Congress. The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings next week on companion legislation sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy
Patrick Joseph LeahyOvernight Defense — Presented by Huntington Ingalls Industries — Pentagon approves transfer of .5B to border wall | Dems blast move | House Dem pushes Pelosi to sue over Trump's Yemen veto Pentagon approves transfer of .5B to Trump border wall from Afghan forces, other accounts Senators sound alarm over looming budget, shutdown battles MORE (D-Vt.).
Meanwhile, opponents have marshaled 244 lawmakers to co-sponsor a resolution opposing royalty payments to performers.
Recent attacks have spurred the NAACP to come to Conyers’s defense.
The president of the NAACP’s Detroit chapter, the Rev. Wendell Anthony, held a news conference with local church leaders last week to call on Radio One to “stop dishonest attacks.”
“Conyers and other members of the CBC have been the target of a vicious smear campaign spearheaded by Big Radio corporations and CEOs who refuse to pay royalties to African-American musicians and performers, many of whom come from the Motown era,” the NAACP Detroit chapter wrote in a statement.
One Conyers ally noted that Hughes is publicizing an ethics complaint filed by an organization headed by Mark Levin, a conservative radio talk show host whose program is broadcast by Citadel Broadcasting, which is made up of 165 FM and 58 AM stations. Levin is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation. This raises the question of whether Levin may be pushing a complaint against Conyers to slow legislation that could harm Citadel’s bottom line.
Sean Glover, a spokesman for Music First, a coalition of companies that has partnered to pass Conyers’s bill, said that “most of the people who don’t support this bill have a financial interest in radio.”
“When people hear the whole story, they support the bill. So far the public has heard only one side of the story because Cathy Hughes and Radio One control the airwaves. They won’t let us advertise on their radio stations.”
The debate has become so intense that the NAACP, the civil rights group that has spent nearly a century advocating for black Americans, has stepped in to call for a truce.
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Leading the charge against the lawmakers is Cathy Hughes, the founder and chairwoman of Radio One, the nation’s largest black-owned broadcast company.
She has aired a series of radio ads targeting black lawmakers, with the most recent round questioning the ethical integrity of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the chief sponsor of the legislation calling for radio stations to pay royalties to musical performers, and seeking to connect him to federal bribery-related charges to which his wife recently pleaded guilty.
The fight has divided the liberal civil rights community, with the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) supporting Conyers while black leaders such as the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson line up with Hughes, Radio One and other black-owned stations.
Radio One’s ads have also criticized Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
Sheila Jackson LeeDem lawmaker says Trump 'has in many respects become a dictator' Dems lay into Trump for taking a 'wrecking ball to the Constitution' Live coverage: House panel moves forward with Barr contempt vote MORE (D-Texas) and three other members of the CBC: Reps. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Robert “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.).These lawmakers support Conyers’s legislation, which was approved in May by the Judiciary Committee and would require AM/FM radio stations to pay royalties to performers, such as Dionne Warwick, who didn’t compose some of their most popular songs.
Under current law, stations only pay copyright royalties to artists who compose hit songs, not those who perform them. Other media, such as satellite and Internet radio, must pay royalties to performers.
The owners say a law requiring them to pay additional royalties would bankrupt their stations.
The barrage has begun to take a toll on lawmakers who come from traditionally safe districts and are accustomed to cruising to reelection.
“We’ve been dealing with this for months now and it’s been creating a number of headaches when we want to focus on healthcare reform,” said Andy Phelan, communications director for Johnson. “It keeps churning and churning and churning. They’re running a lot of negative ads not just against my boss but Mr. Conyers, Mel Watt, Sheila Jackson Lee and Bobby Scott
Robert (Bobby) Cortez ScottNew name, same bad ideas: Democrats introduce union wish list Trump administration creates new religious, moral protections for health workers Labor Department official steps down amid ethics questions: report MORE.”Radio One operates stations in or near the districts of Conyers, Jackson Lee, Johnson and Scott, according to its website.
In a new round of ads running on Radio One, Hughes highlights a recent ethics complaint filed against Conyers by the Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative watchdog group.
Hughes describes Conyers’s “role in writing a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency that supported a waste project tied to his wife, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery while she served on the Detroit City Council.”
Hughes then goes on to quote from the complaint: “John Conyers could not have written the letter without knowing something, and it is crucial that he be questioned under oath under penalty of perjury.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Hughes adds.
U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg, however, has said there is no evidence linking Conyers to his wife’s crime.
“The evidence offered no suggestion that United States Rep. John Conyers, Ms. Conyers’s husband, had any knowledge or role in Ms. Conyers’s illegal conduct, nor did the congressman attempt to influence this investigation in any way,” Berg said in a statement last month.
But Hughes isn’t limiting her fire to Conyers. She has also blasted Jackson Lee and other CBC members who are supporting the legislation.
“All five of these black elected officials continue to ignore the imminent danger to black media ownership,” Hughes says in an ad that criticizes Jackson Lee for claiming that Conyers’s bill would not force any black-owned stations out of business.
“How could she possibly know anything about what it takes or doesn’t take to operate a broadcast facility?” Hughes asks.
But supporters of Conyers’s bill argue that performers receive royalties for radio play in other countries, with the exceptions of North Korea, Iran and China.
The fight has intensified as the legislation has picked up momentum in Congress. The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings next week on companion legislation sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy
Patrick Joseph LeahyOvernight Defense — Presented by Huntington Ingalls Industries — Pentagon approves transfer of .5B to border wall | Dems blast move | House Dem pushes Pelosi to sue over Trump's Yemen veto Pentagon approves transfer of .5B to Trump border wall from Afghan forces, other accounts Senators sound alarm over looming budget, shutdown battles MORE (D-Vt.).Meanwhile, opponents have marshaled 244 lawmakers to co-sponsor a resolution opposing royalty payments to performers.
Recent attacks have spurred the NAACP to come to Conyers’s defense.
The president of the NAACP’s Detroit chapter, the Rev. Wendell Anthony, held a news conference with local church leaders last week to call on Radio One to “stop dishonest attacks.”
“Conyers and other members of the CBC have been the target of a vicious smear campaign spearheaded by Big Radio corporations and CEOs who refuse to pay royalties to African-American musicians and performers, many of whom come from the Motown era,” the NAACP Detroit chapter wrote in a statement.
One Conyers ally noted that Hughes is publicizing an ethics complaint filed by an organization headed by Mark Levin, a conservative radio talk show host whose program is broadcast by Citadel Broadcasting, which is made up of 165 FM and 58 AM stations. Levin is president of the Landmark Legal Foundation. This raises the question of whether Levin may be pushing a complaint against Conyers to slow legislation that could harm Citadel’s bottom line.
Sean Glover, a spokesman for Music First, a coalition of companies that has partnered to pass Conyers’s bill, said that “most of the people who don’t support this bill have a financial interest in radio.”
“When people hear the whole story, they support the bill. So far the public has heard only one side of the story because Cathy Hughes and Radio One control the airwaves. They won’t let us advertise on their radio stations.”
