Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, which has oversight responsibilities for the Federal Communications Commission, blasted the FCC chairman in an X post last week:
Brendan Carr is pulling every dirty trick in the book to weaponize his agency against dissenting voices and attack our First Amendment rights. He is trying to mislead the American people and pressure talk shows to go easy on the Trump Administration. We must stop it.
Matsui was responding to an applause-worthy announcement from Chairman Brendan Carr that the FCC would no longer give a free pass from the commission’s equal-access rules to daytime and late-night talk shows hosting politicians. The rules require that stations give equal airtime to candidates when a show features one of their opponents. But the rules exempt “bona fide news” programs.
Late-night hosts such as Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert have driven a semi through that narrow exemption, bringing on dozens of Democrat politicians without a single Republican. When Jay Leno did that in 2006, it was actually California Democrats who cried out in protest.
“Use of the broadcast spectrum is granted as a public trust. … It is not to be used to favor certain candidates.” That observation came from then-Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., who went on to be a cabinet secretary and is now running for governor of California. He was joined by then-California Treasurer Phil Angelides, who complained about an appearance by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Leno’s The Tonight Show. Apparently, when it gave them an excuse to grouse about a Republican on late-night, Democrats were all for the equal-time rule.
The same could be said of 18 Senate Democrats, who demanded FCC action in 2004 when broadcasting group Sinclair planned to air a documentary critical of then-Sen. John Kerry. They were joined by 85 House Democrats, who said in their letter, “If Sinclair Broadcasting is allowed to proceed with this broadcast it is difficult to understand how equal time policies will not have been violated.” The FCC responded with a warning to Sinclair.
No Democrats at the time seemed to think it was an affront to the First Amendment for the FCC to enforce the equal-time rules. No Democrats said a late-night show counted as a “bona fide news” program under the rule’s exemption. Indeed, congressional Democrats did not even think a documentary about a sitting U.S. senator running for president counted as “bona fide news” because they perceived it to be so one-sided.
Matsui was joined in her diatribe against Chairman Carr’s public notice by Commissioner Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat currently serving on the FCC. Gomez said the action “represent[s] an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor and control speech. The First Amendment does not yield to government intimidation.”
Of course, the rule does nothing to censor or control speech. Kimmel and Colbert and The View can continue to host whatever Democrats they want. Their stations must give comparable airtime to Republicans, which can include free advertisements. When NBC’s Saturday Night Live featured Vice President Kamala Harris the weekend before the 2024 election, NBC gave President Trump a 90-second slot after a NASCAR race to fulfill its equal-time obligation.
Gomez’s statement, like Matsui’s, also ignores the unique First Amendment framework applicable to over-the-air broadcasting. Because the airwaves are a public asset, the companies licensed to use them accept certain responsibilities not applicable to cable or streaming channels. One of those responsibilities is the equal-time rule, which was put in place by Congress to ensure television stations did not become propaganda machines for one candidate or party. That’s clearly constitutional under Supreme Court precedent, which upheld a similar FCC doctrine in 1969.
Late-night television looks like a propaganda machine for one party; in 2025, not a single Republican politician appeared on late-night television, even as dozens of Democrats were showered with free airtime and softball interviews. The FCC’s reminder of the stations’ equal-time obligations is eminently timely as we head into another election year. Democrats should heed their hypocrisy on this issue and stop grandstanding for their Hollywood pals.
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