"Three salutes to Mike Pence from Indiana," crowed Rush Limbaugh on his Friday, June 29th radio program. "He basically proposed an amendment to disallow federal funds to be used to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, and it won big, 319 to 100-something. When the rubber met the road, the Democrats did not have the guts to vote for this. It wasn't even close."

Mike Pence

But former talk show host now Representative Pence has gone even further. With support from his ally in the Senate, John McCain of Arizona, the two Republicans say they will sponsor the "Broadcaster Freedom Act" in their respective legislative chambers. Senators Norm Coleman (R) of Minnesota, John Thune (R) of South Dakota, and Jim DeMint (R) of South Carolina also favor the measure.

"The legislation would prevent the Federal Communications Commission from reinstating the 'Fairness Doctrine'," McCain declares on his senate Web site, "a regulation that had required broadcasters to present opposing viewpoints on issues of public importance."

The statement claims that the rule, which the FCC abandoned 20 years ago, has had a "chilling affect [sic] on free speech."

"And it is hard to imagine that the American people would support reinstating a policy where the Federal government would be required to police the airwaves to ensure differing viewpoints are offered," McCain concludes.

There has been some talk in the House on reviving the Fairness Doctrine, most of it from Democrat and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

The FCC upheld and enforced the Fairness Doctrine from 1949 through 1987. In 1969 the United States Supreme Court declared the policy constitutional after the FCC ordered a conservative radio station that had attacked a liberal journalist to give the reporter a chance to respond over the frequency's airwaves.

But during the Reagan administration years, the FCC began to pull back from the rule, issuing a "Fairness Doctrine Report" in 1985 that suggested that the policy "operates as a pervasive and significant impediment to the broadcasting of controversial issues of public importance."

Two years later an appeals court ruled that since Congress had never passed legislation authorizing the Fairness Doctrine, the FCC did not have to enforce it. In response, the House and Senate passed a Fairness Law, but could not override President Reagan's veto in the Senate.

The FCC then abandoned the practice, famously derided by Limbaugh as the "Hush Rush" rule.

During Friday's vote, Democratic Representative David Obey of Wisconsin dismissed the move to statutorily ban the Fairness Doctrine as unnecessary.

"There is no prospect of any serious effort to revive the Fairness Doctrine, either the legislatively or legally—" he said on the floor of the House.

"I think we ought to let right-wing talk radio go on just as they do now," Obey added. "Rush and Sean [Hannity] are just about as important in the scheme of things, as Paris Hilton. I would hate to see them gain an ounce of credibility by being forced by a government agency or anybody else to moderate their views, and also that they just might become modestly influential or respectable."