Radio Heimlich
You’ll recall that earlier this month at a lunch gathering of Senate Republicans, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver on Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who later joked that she was choking on Biden Administration policies that were hard for Americans to swallow.
But soon after, when it came time to allow quick passage of the AM for Every Vehicle Act in the Senate, Paul put a choke hold on the move.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas had asked for unanimous consent on the measure, which would stop the auto industry from keeping AM radios out of new vehicles because we need a strong national communications outlet in time of emergency.
But Sen. Paul blocked it, which is his or any Senator’s right. You can’t have unanimous consent without unanimity.
Sen. Paul believes there are other ways to get at the same thing, like tying including AM radio within existing incentives to electric vehicle production. But this is a cash grab by the auto industry, to require you to use their paid streaming services instead of free over-the-air radio…AM first, under the excuse of interference with electric cars, then FM will be next because the precedent will have been set.
And Sen. Paul believes government should stay out of telling business what to do, and generally I agree. Obviously, I work in radio, so I am partial to the proposed law…but regardless of that, there are issues of public safety at work here, and government already regulates the radio spectrum for that reason.
Time for the Kentucky senator to perform a Heimlich on his block of unanimous consent for the bill…so radio can freely breathe in your vehicles going forward.
