Lee Elci, New London County’s Rush Limbaugh is the Republican candidate to unseat Martha Marx, who represents the 20th Senatorial District. Elci’s show runs for four hours a day on a Fox owned radio station, and Marx has demanded equal time, citing “FCC regulations and ample precedent”:
By regulation, the FCC says, “no station licensee is required to permit the use of its facilities by any legally qualified candidate for public office, but if any licensee shall permit any such candidate to use its facilities, it shall afford equal opportunities to all other candidates for that office.”
Martha says she’s quite a talker and could easily use up the four hours daily they’d have to give to her.
Right now Elci’s show has been suspended, and if the station decides he must stay suspended, in order to keep Marx off the air, he will likely withdraw his candidacy. Elci thinks he can get around the regulation by not talking about his candidacy or Marx, but that likely fails for two reasons: 1) He won’t be able to stop talking about his candidacy or Marx, and 2) the wording of the regulation is clear, as it bars the use of the facilities and does not address the content of the speech. Also, as the article at the Connecticut Mirror points out, there’s another problem:
His remaining on the air could be considered an in-kind contribution by the radio station to his campaign, a potential violation of state election law for a candidate who intends to participate in the state’s public financing program. Elci said the station lawyers were seeking clarification from elections enforcement officials.
Great move by Martha, who was once a regular at our Drinking Liberally. We miss you Martha.