Dump Mike Ferguson (NJ7)

Senator John Sununu (R-NH) and Mike Ferguson (R-NJ) wrote a letter to the Federal Communications Commission regarding the new business of wireless broadband. The letter is below the fold, but the important part is in this sentence.

With this action, the Commission has an opportunity to expand the deregulatory landscape to respond to the competitive marketplace for wireless services.

Essentially, Michael Ferguson and Sununu is asking the FCC to do nothing to regulate wireless businesses that will use the public airways -- for free -- to make boatloads of money. That same sentiment is what has given us such excellent cell phone service to date.

The real hypocrisy is that Ferguson would let the companies that broadcast broadband free reign using our airwaves, but wants to forbid you and me from recording radio shows. If you have TiVo, you know how great it is to record a show and skip the commercials. Ferguson would make that illegal for radio.

Ferguson wants to give the corporations freedom from government regulation, while regulate individual citizens.

February 26, 2007

The Honorable Kevin J. Martin
Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20554

Dear Chairman Martin,

We write regarding your recent comments outlining upcoming Commission action to classify the offering of a wireless broadband service as an information service. As Members of the Congress who have been preparing legislation for this purpose, we were pleasantly surprised to learn of the Commission's impending action on the matter. Based on your comments, we trust that the Commission can complete such an item without delay, and we remain prepared to assist you, including taking legislative action, if necessary.

For procedural reasons, it is vital that the Commission take quick action to determine the regulatory framework with which wireless broadband providers must comply. Regulatory uncertainty over the treatment of these services only will delay deployment, depress penetration rates for Internet access, decrease consumer options, energize other regulatory bodies into action, and generate protracted litigation. By addressing this issue immediately, the Commission can ensure that all wireless broadband services -- whether offered by traditional wireless phone network providers, wi-fi networks providers, mesh network providers or otherwise -- are on equal footing for the purpose of complying with Commission rules, thereby preventing unfair competitive advantages to any one wireless broadband provider.

Equally important, the Commission's actions must result in the correct substantive outcome as well. Like previous Commission actions to classify similar services as information services -- namely cable broadband service, wireline broadband service, and broadband over powerline broadband service -- the Commission must expand the light regulatory touch afforded by Title I designation upon wireless broadband services. Beyond the competitive inequities that would arise if not done, wireless broadband services clearly meet the statutory definition for an information service. Moreover, such a classification will ensure that wireless broadband providers will be able to quickly respond to the changing marketplace and meet consumer demands without the undue burdens that can accompany Title II or III service classifications.

As broadband offerings proliferate, consumers will demand greater broadband mobility. With this action, the Commission has an opportunity to expand the deregulatory landscape to respond to the competitive marketplace for wireless services. Additionally, such a measure would continue the progress made since the start of the decade to reduce the unnecessary heavy hand of government regulation.

We look forward to seeing the Commission's action on this matter, and we ask that we be kept fully informed as this item proceeds forward. We also ask that this letter be treated as appropriate under Commission rules.

Sincerely,

John E. Sununu
U.S. Senator

Mike Ferguson
US Representative

Posted by admin at 06:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week we noted that Mike Ferguson admitted he was not free to vote his conscience in the Republican led Congress, choosing his political bosses over his constituents. The following letter on the subject was published in the Home News Tribune on March 3, 2007:

Ferguson represents GOP, not constituents

In representative government, the republic depends upon the representatives actually representing their constituents.

Voting should be in the best interests of the voters. Were this not to be the case, voters must cast out the offending representative.

Rep. Michael Ferguson, R-7th Dist., has now admitted that he votes as he is told to, not as should to honor the best interests of his district. No "Profile in Courage" he. Ferguson does as he is told and has a moderate district firmly in the conservative camp, because he feels more of a responsibility to the GOP than to New Jersey.

I think it is time for careful observation, which should lead to sober decision-making in 2008.

Leonard H. Sigal
BELLE MEAD

Posted by admin at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Katherine Watt of North Plainfield took a trip last week to meet with Congressman Michael Ferguson. Here's her account of the meeting.

On February 24, Congressman Mike Ferguson held an open house at his Warren office. During his brief meeting with me and another local activist, he repeatedly insisted that he is “totally dissatisfied” with the “status quo” in Iraq, and that his dissatisfaction led him to support President Bush’s troop “surge” and informed his “No” vote on H.Con.Res. 63, a resolution expressing Congressional opposition to both the surge and the more-of-the-same strategy behind it. Ferguson similarly expressed his dissatisfaction, and his support for the surge, in his Feb. 16 remarks to Congress during debate on the resolution.

The Democratic-sponsored resolution was non-binding, and therefore a tiny and inadequate first step – but a first step nonetheless – toward responding to the Iraqi peoples' passionate and well-documented desire for the Americans to get out, and the American electorate’s November demand that Congress end the war and bring the troops home.

The April appropriations bill will matter far more; money already appropriated in prior years can be used to end the war and bring the troops home, but cutting off future financing is the only way Congress can carry out its Constitutional duty, as a co-equal branch of government, to check the power abuses of the executive branch.

When I asked, Ferguson acknowledged he is aware of Congress’ equal power; that Congress has practical tools, including hearings, with which to exercise that equal power; and that the President is as bound to obey U.S. and international law as any other American citizen: that no one in a Constitutional democracy is above the law.

An interesting follow-up question for Mr. Ferguson is this:

“Given that the two most stable pillars of the status quo for the last four years have been blind obedience to Bush’s failed leadership and the inflammatory and deadly occupying presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, how will you reach your goal of changing the status quo by repeating obedient gestures toward Bush and adding more U.S. troops to Iraq?”

I think a better approach, for all members of the House and Senate, would be to ignore Bush, defund the war, and begin pulling the troops out immediately. There are several Democratic proposals to do just that, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, Rep. Jim McGovern and many others. If changing the status quo is Mr. Ferguson’s intention, I hope he’ll show more thoughtful and responsive leadership, by co-sponsoring one of those proposals.

Posted by admin at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)