In media circles, bipartisanship is often touted as the ne plus ultra of political desirability. A television talking head, usually on CNN or one of the other outlets that pretend, like Janus, to look both ways, will say something along the lines of: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if those silly squabbling politicians could just set aside their differences and work together to solve our problems?” perhaps followed by “They need to do it for the sake of the children!” which adds an unreasonable dollop of saccharine emphasis. Unfortunately, like much of the common currency of the chattering classes, this is usually a worthless sentiment.
Bipartisanship all too often results in the worst of all possible worlds, satisfying no one and perpetuating problems that legislation should set out to resolve. At best, bipartisanship results in wishy-washy milquetoast compromises. At worst, it produces unconstitutional monstrosities like the notorious McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation otherwise known as the “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.” However, something strange has recently arrived: a piece of legislation that all right-thinking Americans can feel good about supporting.
The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act — the “CALM Act” — will be sent to the president’s desk after it has received a second vote in the House. The act seeks to prohibit that particularly annoying phenomenon that is the volume of a television broadcast jumping up dramatically just as a program cuts to commercials. After having been initially passed by suspension in the House some time ago, the bill finally passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Wednesday, the last day of the congressional session.
Presumably there was some lobbying opposition from the advertising industry, but there’s little evidence the legislation is going to be anything other than popular with the public. Many of the Democratic Party co-sponsors have commented that the CALM Act is one of the most popular things they’ve supported on the Hill, which is perhaps unsurprising when you glance over the rest of their legislative resumes. It’s true that in the middle of this chronic recession members of Congress could be focusing on more important issues, like stopping employment-killing tax hikes from taking effect in January, when the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire. However, in this instance, let’s not begrudge them too much.
It’s just a shame that the CALM Act took so long to turn down the volume on abrasively loud commercials, seeing as most of us now have DVR at home and can already fast-forward through the annoying advertisements. But I guess this is just a case of the market being ahead of the politicians.
David Archer is a business risk analyst.