Democrats Block Republican Efforts to Investigate Big Telecom Censorship

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are blocking a resolution from Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) calling on the White House to hand documents over to members of Congress on the White House’s efforts to force Big Telecom companies to censor cable news channels, as well as any pressure the Biden White House has placed on the FCC to regulate Big Tech.

Rep. Carter’s resolution was backed by ranking member Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), but was blocked by Democrat members of the committee, which oversees regulation of the telecoms industry as well as Big Tech.

Via Congress.gov:

This resolution requests from the President certain information and documents that concern regulating the content of multichannel video programming distributors (e.g., cable operators), broadcast stations, and video streaming services. The resolution also requests information or documents in which the President asks the Federal Communications Commission to take action to regulate Big Tech.

The effort aims to shed further light on partisan efforts to force conservative channels off the airwaves, coming on the heels of telecoms giants like AT&T’s decision to blacklist the One America News Network (OAN) after pressure from Democrat members of the Energy & Commerce Committee.

In a comment to Breitbart News, Rep. Carter condemned Democrats’ attempts to hide the truth about the White House’s censorship efforts from the American public.

“Unfortunately, the left is waging a war on our right to free speech,” said Rep. Carter. “Every single committee Democrat voted against my commonsense resolution to require the FCC be transparent about politically-motivated censorship.”

“The Biden Administration and Washington Democrats are keeping information out of the hands of the American people – information we deserve to have. What do they have against transparency? What do they have to hide? Free speech is a First Amendment right for a reason. Without it, we don’t have a democracy.”

In remarks at the Energy and Commerce Committee, ranking member Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) questioned why the FCC would be reluctant to turn over the requested information, and slammed Democrats for trying to pressure private companies to censor.

“If it’s unnecessary, then the FCC will have no problem turning over the documents,” said Rep. McMorris Rodgers. “Rather than focusing on rebuilding our economy or lowering grocery prices, [the Democrats’] priority was more overreach and more government control. Senior Democrats on this Committee sent twelve threatening letters to major video programming distributors to pressure them into dropping Fox News, Newsmax, One America News.”

“These attempts to get woke corporations to do for them what they cannot do themselves is downright frightening. And the Supreme Court has held that similar behaviors are unconstitutional.”

With Democrats in congress blocking Rep. Carter’s attempts to investigate the matter further, the stage could be set for the Republicans to make the issue of Big Telecom censorship a priority if the party takes back control of the House in November.

If this occurs, Republican-controlled committees will be able to investigate and pressure not just the White House and federal government, both of which have been pushing hard for greater online censorship, but also the Big Tech and Big Telecom companies themselves.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.