Hearing on doomed Performance Rights Act scheduled anyway
The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on the Performance Rights Act for 2:30 pm on August 4. No idea yet on who will be testifying for and against the bill, but we wonder if it even matters, given the clear message from the House that this legislation WILL NOT PASS.
There are now over 240 House co-sponsors of the "Local Radio Freedom Act", with more signing on earlier this week. Shoot, there are now 22 co-sponsors of the Senate version of the Local Radio Freedom Act (S Con. Res 14). If the House members are good to their word, HR 848, the House version of the Performance Rights Act is — and we believe this is the mathematically accurate term — dead in the water.
Is holding a hearing on a bill that has virtually no chance of being enacted into law a good use of the Committee’s time (especially when they still haven’t passed the Free Flow of Information Act, among other, more pressing and realistic pieces of legislation)? Committee Chair Patrick Leahy apparently doesn’t think so, as he won’t even be presiding over this hearing. Instead, he has passed that task on to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
