Court gives Commission seven days to respond to charges about irregularities in the way revised ownership report was developed.
With the July 8 deadline for filing commercial ownership reports fast approaching, we have a new development to report: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ordered the FCC to respond to claims that the revised Form 323 filing requirements – and particularly the requirement that all “attributable” principals provide their social security numbers (SSNs) – were not imposed lawfully. While it’s impossible to predict what the Court will ultimately do, the fact that it has asked the FCC for its side of the story suggests a level of judicial interest which should be of concern to the Commission.
The Court’s involvement was sought by Fletcher Heald, together with a number of state broadcast associations and broadcasters. In May they filed a petition for writ of mandamus asking the Court to step in to compel the Commission to comply with required procedures before forcing anybody and everybody with any “attributable” interest to cough up their SSNs to the agency.
We have been following the problematic history of the FCC’s efforts to revise its ownership report (Form 323) for commercial broadcasters for more than a year. Any readers new to the situation can catch up by taking a romp through our past Form 323 posts here.
A petition for mandamus is what the Court terms an “extraordinary” request in which the petitioner asks the Court to force the agency to comply with statutory requirements which the agency appears to be ignoring. Unlike the more conventional appellate process – which routinely contemplates that the FCC must make its case in a responsive brief before the Court will act one way or the other – the mandamus process does not guarantee any response from the FCC. To the contrary, the Court can, and often does, simply deny or dismiss a petition for mandamus with a two or three sentence order without bothering the Commission at all.
But the Court’s rules provide that a petition for mandamus will not be granted unless the agency is given an opportunity to respond. That’s one reason the Court’s order directing the FCC to respond to the FHH et al. petition is of more than passing interest. Throw in the fact that the Court’s order gives the FCC a mere seven days in which to respond, and that interest grows: such an abbreviated response deadline at least suggests that the Court may be looking to assemble a complete record and act on the petition in advance of the fast-approaching due date (currently July 8) for filing reports on the revised Form 323.
By our reckoning, the FCC’s response to the Court’s order will mark the first time that the Commission will have had to address, in a formal presentation, the unusual – and, in the view of a number of observers, unlawful – approach by which it has tried to force all “attributable” principals to give the FCC their SSNs. Anyone who has been following this story will want to check back here next week to see what the FCC has to say.
