FCC Looking for Public Comments on LUC Issue
The Federal Communications Commission is asking for public comment on the challenge of the Media Bureau’s guidance that the lowest unit charge (LUC) for political ads applies not just to candidates but to authorized committees engaged in joint
fundraising with federal candidates and to candidate-party coordinated advertisements. Democratic candidates Sherrod Brown, Jon Ossoff, Roy Cooper and Kristen McDonald Rivet are arguing that the Media Bureau’s guidance is incorrect because Congress only intended the discounted rates to benefit candidates and their candidate committees.
FCC Media Bureau’s decision that those entities could benefit from the LUC. The plaintiffs argued that the Media Bureau’s public notice “unlawfully dilutes [their] and other candidates’ statutory right to buy advertising time at lowest unit charge by insisting that broadcasters make that same right available to political parties and joint fundraising committees in circumstances where their spending cannot, under campaign finance law, be considered spending by or on behalf of a candidate.” The Court ruled that “the LUC requirement and campaign finance statutes are clear that neither political parties nor joint fundraising committees with non-candidate members can be entitled to the LUC.”