What congressmen knew and when they knew it: Further evidence on the origins of U.S. broadcasting regulation

This paper presents richer contemporaneous evidence of Congress's role in the passage of the Radio Act of 1927, the act which established the basic statutory framework that still governs federal regulation of broadcasting in the United States. Recent analysis finding the court's decision in Tribune Co. v. Oak Leaves Broadcasting Station to have been the cause of Congress's action on the radio bill is shown to rest on an inaccurate chronology of congressional decisionmaking. More closely examining the actions of legislators upon whose votes passage of the radio act depended, this paper contributes new evidence of strategic orchestration surrounding the perceived “chaos of the airwaves” that stimulated broadcasting regulation. Original congressional documents show that, in a political context characterized by costly information, intra-congressional manipulation of information costs was an important factor in the adoption of the Radio Act of 1927. Personal ties between executive branch officials are shown to have spawned a key legal opinion that prompted passage of the radio bill.