The ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, is retiring after 38 years in the Senate. His staff compiled a list of 38 accomplishments the nation should remember him for.
The broadcast actions include: "A friend of the consumer, he created a competitive telecommunications industry through the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the first major rewrite of the Communications Act of 1934. He fought to ensure it provided new services to consumers at affordable rates."
Hollings also, "Reined in the cable TV monopolies, as the driving force in the early 1990s for the Cable and Consumer Protections Act. Persistent service and rate abuses by TV cable companies around the country prompted Senator Hollings to lead the charge in giving the Federal Communications Commission authority to regulate basic cable TV rates and set minimum service standards."
And, he "Authored the 1990 Children's TV Act, requiring stations to carry educational programming for children and limiting the amount of commercials aired during children's programming."
His staff called Hollings, "the voice for fiscal sanity on the Senate floor for three decades," stating "He promised he would jump off the Capitol Dome if ever there was a balanced budget, but because too few listened to the only original member of the Senate Budget Committee, the country has a $600 billion deficit, and Senator Hollings retires without jumping."
(from Radio World)
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