[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 129 (Friday, August 4, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8516]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FRAUDULENT CORRESPONDENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the telecommunications 
bill, but I also want to say that communication from my constituents is 
very important to me because that is one of many ways that one deals 
with issues and shapes views.
  But unfortunately, during this debate, that very communications has 
been compromised for the first time in the time that I have had the 
privilege of serving in the House. I hold up, Mr. Speaker, generated 
communications, letters with names and addresses of constituents 
ranging from Martinsburg to Harpers Ferry, to Weston, to Charleston, to 
Ravenswood, to Ripley, all across the State of West Virginia.
  Mr. Speaker, I hold up 550 letters. This was the amount of mail 
coming in in the last few days on the telecommunications bill, all 
expressing one point of view.
  We decided to do a survey to find out whether people and genuinely 
been behind these letters. What I found, Mr. Speaker, was that in 
contacting 15 people, we found 8 people of the 15 who were unaware that 
their names were on one of these letters. We found out, Mr. Speaker, 
that of the 15, 3 were deceased and he had been dead for 6 to 7 years.
  We found out that 4 people were aware. What that means, Mr. Speaker, 
is about two-thirds of the people listed here may not have actually 
communicated with my office, but their names were used to represent it.
  This is an outrage, Mr. Speaker. I encourage my constituents, as all 
my colleagues do, Mr. Speaker, to write, to express their opinions. For 
the first time, the credibility of their written opinions has been put 
at risk. I hope that something will be done about this.
  I encourage constituents to write directly or to call; that way, we 
know what their opinions are.
  Mr. Speakers, I am voting against this telecommunications bill, 
mainly because of the cable provisions. I fought too hard in this 
Congress for several years to try and get some regulation of cable 
rates, and yet, with the passage of this legislation, rural cable rates 
can be deregulated immediately. What that means is that in West 
Virginia, 40 percent of the cable could become deregulated upon 
enactment.
 That is very significant.

  Mr. Speaker, despite what some may say, before regulation in 1992, 
before we were able to get some control over rates, cable rates had 
gone up 61 percent, or 3 times the rate of inflation. Following 
regulation and the ability to monitor some of the rates, the rates went 
down, in some cases as much as 17 percent, and consumers were saved $3 
billion. That is all now put at risk by the passage of this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I did not come here to vote for an immediate rate 
increase for cable users. I think that that is something that has to be 
dealt with to clean this bill up, so that by Christmas, our cable users 
are not seeing a $5 to $7 increase.
  I want competition in the cable industry like everyone else, but 
unfortunately, the cable rates can be raised before there is effective 
competition, and that does not benefit anyone.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that in this 
legislation, the V-chip passed. I am holding up a V-chip, Mr. Speaker, 
very thin, very inexpensive, but what it does is give parents control 
over the TV sets that their children are watching. All of us, as 
parents, want to know that we have some input into what our children 
learn and what they see and what they watch on television.
  This V-chip is not censorship. It is parental control, and all it 
does is say that parents may, with this V-chip in the TV set, will now 
be able to program out that which is rated as violent. Some say that is 
censorship; perhaps those in Hollywood think it is censorship.
  Mr. Speaker, nothing stops what comes across the television screen, 
but what can stop the material from being seen by a child whose parent 
does not want it seen is this V-chip. So we are going to fight hard to 
make sure this V-chip stays inside the television set.
  With this V-chip, Mr. Speaker, you can take a very, very big bite out 
of the violence that your children see.

                              {time}  1615

  So I think it is important that this stay in this telecommunications 
legislation. My hope is that eventually there will be a bill that we 
can support, but this bill today, particularly what it does to rural 
cable users, is not the bill to be supporting.

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