Florida Republicans urge FCC to reject Democrats’ attempts to silence Hispanic conservatives

News & Politics

Florida’s two United States senators and the U.S. House congressman representing much of Miami-Dade County are urging the Federal Communications Commission to resist pressure from Democrats to block the sale of a local Spanish-language radio station to a conservative ownership group.

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) along with Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) on Wednesday published a letter to FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel urging the FCC to reject “politicization” of the agency by Democrats.

“We write to express our profound concern that highly partisan political operatives, many with no ties to South Florida, are attempting to pressure the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reject the pending application of WSUA Broadcasting Corporation to assign the license of WSUA (AM) (known as Radio Caracol 1260) and FM translator W232DX (which rebroadcasts WSUA) to ATV Holdings, Inc,” the lawmakers wrote.

“The opponents of the proposed sale have expressed concerns about the potential content of WSUA’s programming, claiming it would be overly conservative.”

Last month, the Democratic Congressional Hispanic Caucus demanded that the FCC “scrutinize” the sale of popular Miami radio station Caracol 1260 AM to America-CV Network LLC, a broadcasting company that owns the Spanish-language TV station América TeVé in Hialeah, Florida.

Democrats cried foul after America-CV fired the station’s most popular on-air personality, former Hialeah Democratic Mayor Raul Martinez, who hosted a four-hour daily talk show. They are upset that conservative voices will have an opportunity to spread so-called “Spanish-language misinformation” on the airwaves in Miami County, which former President Donald Trump won in 2020 with support from Hispanic voters.

At the time, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr blasted Democrats for attempting to punish conservative points of view by interfering in the sale.

“This attempt by Democrats in Congress to pressure the FCC into blocking the sale of a Spanish-language radio station based on the political viewpoints that it would broadcast to South Florida’s Hispanic community crosses a line drawn by the First Amendment,” Carr said. “The FCC has no business doing the Democrats’ bidding or using our regulatory process to censor political opinions that Democrats do not like. What’s worse, the Democrats appear to be treating the FCC as merely an arm of the DNC—expressly pressuring the agency to take action that they believe will increase their electoral odds in Florida in 2022.”

Rubio, Scott, and Díaz-Balart cited Carr in their letter, joining him in criticizing the Democrats’ demands.

“We are concerned by these attempts to impose on the FCC’s independence and politicize its decisions by encouraging content-based censorship,” the lawmakers wrote. “Preventing the assignment of the radio station licenses based on its anticipated programming would set a dangerous precedent, and likely would violate the First Amendment’s protections of free expression and a free, independent media. Instead, as you consider the application, we respectfully request that you reject any politicization of the FCC, and engage the application on its merits alone.”

The Republicans went on to mock Democrats for complaining about one right-leaning radio station given “the overwhelming predominance of left-leaning bias in print, cable, and broadcast media.”

“It is similarly telling that simply because the purchaser is expected to have an anti-Castro, anti-Communist, anti-Socialist viewpoint, it has been deemed ‘too conservative,'” the lawmakers wrote.

“Constituents of our state and districts do not appreciate the brazen attempt by partisans, many from outside the state, to impose their media choices on South Floridians,” the lawmakers said in the letter. “Comments indicating that our constituents will be duped by ‘disinformation’ is insulting and tinged with racism. South Florida has a wide array of media sources, and our constituents are exceedingly capable of determining which of them are worthy of their trust and time.”

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4 Comments

  1. It appears that the dimokraps are unable to handle an honest debate in the arena of public discourse and instead want to simply silence any thoughts or ideas that they don’t espouse. It use to be that they would simply yell and scream louder and longer when they couldn’t refute what their opponents had to say. Since they realize that their goofy ideas can’t survive scrutiny their new tact is to silence any other thoughts or ideas utilizing the heavy hand of government to accomplish it.

  2. It always amazes me how Hitler’esque democrats are, but what’s truly amazing is people align themselves with that party and no one cares that they’re rscists or fascists?

  3. When a group of people feel the need to silence another group of people does that mean that the first group’s ideas are inferior to the 2nd group? Very few actually want what the democrat party is selling and the more voices against them the better. Even the idiots who vote democrat consistently don’t want a party that has iron fisted control and face it, that’s what is the democrats ultimate goal. When the DAs that vote democrat hear better alternatives many will stop voting democrat. Let the conservatives no matter what group the democrat party has put them in be heard loud and clear. To me we are all Americans.

  4. Liberals do not want any conservative group to have a voice in anything political. The libs want any voice that is against their socialist policies to be silenced. They only want their point of view on the air or on TV. They forget this is the USA and we have a constitution that gives us freedom of speech.

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