[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 69 (Tuesday, April 25, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1335-S1336]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Executive Calendar No. 64, Joshua David Jacobs, of 
     Washington, to be Under Secretary for Benefits of the 
     Department of Veterans Affairs.
         Charles E. Schumer, Raphael G. Warnock, Ben Ray Lujan, 
           Tammy Duckworth, Jeff Merkley, Tim Kaine, Christopher 
           A. Coons, Debbie Stabenow, Jon Tester, Sheldon 
           Whitehouse, Tina Smith, Tammy Baldwin, Catherine Cortez 
           Masto, Angus S. King, Jr., Mazie K. Hirono, John W. 
           Hickenlooper, Margaret Wood Hassan.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Joshua David Jacobs, of Washington, to be Under Secretary 
for Benefits of the Department of Veterans Affairs, shall be brought to 
a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Mrs. 
Feinstein) and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily 
absent.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. 
Blackburn), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Hagerty), and the Senator 
from Idaho (Mr. Risch).
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 72, nays 22, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 95 Ex.]

                                YEAS--72

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boozman
     Britt
     Brown
     Budd
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Cruz
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Fetterman
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Johnson
     Kaine
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lujan
     Manchin
     Markey
     Marshall
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Reed
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Tuberville
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Welch
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--22

     Braun
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Daines
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Grassley
     Hawley
     Lankford
     Lee
     Lummis
     McConnell
     Mullin
     Paul
     Ricketts
     Rubio
     Schmitt
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Sullivan
     Vance
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--6

     Barrasso
     Blackburn
     Feinstein
     Hagerty
     Risch
     Sanders
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Warnock). On this vote, the yeas are 72, 
the nays are 22.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from New Jersey.


                       Diversity in Broadcasting

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to the floor to highlight what I 
consider to be a grave injustice, and I urge us to do something about 
it. I do so because I remain deeply concerned about an issue that often 
flies under the radar, which is our Nation's severe lack of diversity 
when it comes to broadcast station ownership.
  Three years ago, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights 
published a report titled ``The Abysmal State of Media Ownership 
Diversity in America.'' That is an apt title, especially because, 
according to the Federal Communications Commission--the Agency 
responsible for regulating broadcasters--minorities in America make up 
less than 3 percent of all broadcast station owners. For women, the 
numbers aren't much better. They account for less than 6 percent of all 
station owners.
  These abysmal figures from the FCC--consistently in the single 
digits--are unacceptable. They are an affront to the incredible 
diversity that makes America the exceptional Nation that it is. And 
simply put, we do ourselves an enormous disservice when the vast 
majority of TV and radio stations in America are predominantly owned by 
White men. This lack of diversity in broadcasting is a problem that 
materially affects the people I represent in New Jersey.

  Even as trusted sources of local news continue to be decimated, 
broadcast media stations play a crucial role in educating the public. 
They are an invaluable source of information, a safe harbor, 
particularly for minority communities at a time when new consumers 
continue to be bombarded with misinformation and disinformation.
  Very often--speaking in one element of the Hispanic community--radio 
is what the community turns to in the case of an emergency. During the 
pandemic, it is where they turned to to get trusted information about 
how to take care of themselves and their families. In storms, 
tornadoes, and hurricanes, they are the preferred entity.
  So all of us in this Chamber have a duty to be responsible stewards 
of the public airwaves, and we do this by ensuring that the ownership 
of stations reflects the audiences they reach. When minority 
communities turn on the radio and the television, the programming 
should be about events in their community, very possibly in a language 
they understand, speaking about a culture they know, and addressing 
issues they care about the most. We can only achieve this by having 
broadcast station leaders with similar life experiences to their 
listeners and viewers alike.
  Make no mistake, if we hope to raise the appalling numbers of 
minority-owned broadcast stations in America, it starts with seizing 
every opportunity in front of us to increase their ranks.
  It is long past time that the regulators at the Federal 
Communications Commission prioritize diversity in broadcast ownership.
  Right now, the FCC has before it the case of Soo Kim, a Korean-
American entrepreneur who has applied to acquire TEGNA Broadcasting. 
Should the deal go through, it would make TEGNA the largest minority-
owned broadcast station group in the country. However, for more than a 
year, this deal has been in limbo.
  I am not here to speak about all the details of this deal or the pros 
and cons of its merits, but basic fairness dictates that the FCC should 
make a decision one way or another and not just veto it through, in 
essence, inaction. That is not the American way. A vote is a fair shot 
and a way to see how the Commission will react to diversity issues when 
they become available.

[[Page S1336]]

  Diversity, for me, means the fullness of diversity. It means African 
Americans. It means Hispanic Americans. It means women. It means LGBTQ 
Americans. And, yes, it means Asian Americans.
  We need the FCC Commissioners to commit to increasing diversity in 
media ownership not just in words but with actions. I, for one, will 
not support nominees for the FCC if they are unwilling to support 
diversity, including by acting in a way that denies a vote to a diverse 
applicant. They cannot argue that broadcast station owners should 
reflect their audiences, publicly saying--this is the FCC--``We need to 
do better.'' Well, that is great. Then you miss the opportunities to 
expand diversity in broadcasting when it is before you.
  In the past, I have tried to address this issue head on through 
legislation. I will continue to follow that route as well.
  Last Congress, alongside Senator Peters, I introduced a bill, the 
Broadcast VOICES Act, that would help address the lack of diversity in 
the industry through innovations in our Tax Code. Through a Federal tax 
incentive, our bill would ensure that women- and minority-owned 
stations can compete on a level playing field to provide a benefit to 
audiences.
  It would reestablish a program in order to reincentivize broadcast 
ownership. I say ``reincentivize'' because Congress has actually done 
this before. During the nearly two decades that this tax incentive as 
outlined in the Broadcast VOICES Act was active, minority ownership and 
diversity in the broadcast media industry grew fivefold. It grew 
fivefold. So think about where it was when I referred to the earlier 
percentages and where we are today. This tax provision helped increase 
it from virtually nothing to fivefold. That is right--the number of 
minority owners quintupled when the incentive was in place.
  So make no mistake, the task in front of us is clear. Government 
regulators at the FCC have identified that there is a diversity problem 
in broadcast ownership. As I have said, there are steps this body can 
take to address it through the Broadcast VOICES Act, but the FCC has 
its share of the burden as well. It must more than talk the talk; it 
must walk the walk on the issue of diversity in media ownership.
  I pushed for diverse candidates at every Agency. I will continue to 
do so. I am hopeful that the administration seizes the opportunity 
before them to nominate a diverse candidate to the Federal 
Communications Commission because part of taking proactive steps on 
industry diversity is ensuring that the regulator itself is more 
diverse.
  My first question to any FCC nominee I meet will be ``What actions 
will you take, if confirmed, to expand diversity in broadcast 
ownership?'' If they are a present FCC Commissioner seeking to be 
reestablished at the Commission, voted on again to return to the 
Commission: ``What actions have you taken to expand diversity in 
broadcast ownership?''
  Only if we as Members press this issue will things change. It is time 
to afford our communities the representation in media they deserve, not 
just representation that others think they deserve.

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