Glenn Miller campaign spots banned from radio

Rasp

Senior Editor
Senate hopeful Miller pursuing legal action after FCC ruling

Aurora resident Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. said he's looking for an attorney, now that the Federal Communications Commission has ruled he has no right to have his campaign commercials air on radio stations around the state.

"They leave me no choice but to file a lawsuit and get a federal judge to comply with the law, allowing me to campaign on the radio," said Miller.

Miller, an Aurora resident who is an outspoken white supremacist, is running as a write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate. Earlier this year he began submitting radio ads to stations around the state that urged white people to "unite" and "take our country back." Various ads posted on his campaign Web site use language derogatory to Jews, racial and ethnic minorities.

Many stations around the state were hesitant to run the ads, and turned to the Missouri Broadcasters Association seeking a ruling about whether or not Miller really was a "bona fide" candidate. If the FCC determined that he was, then stations would be required to accept his ads.

The broadcasters argued that bona fide candidates by law must make a "substantial showing" engaging in activities like making speeches, distributing campaign literature, issuing press releases, having a campaign committee, and a campaign headquarters.

Gregg Skall, an attorney for broadcasters, said one reason Miller's campaign for statewide office didn't seem bona fide is nearly all of Miller's activities were limited to southwest Missouri.

On June 18, the FCC contacted the Missouri Broadcasters Association by phone to tell them that it was responding to their petition with "informal, oral advice." According to a post on the Missouri Radio Message Board, broadcasters were told that it was not unreasonable for stations to determine Miller wasn't a bona fide candidate, and thus not entitled to buy air time.

A call to an FCC attorney for more information about the ruling was not returned by deadline.

Miller told the News-Leader he was not only discouraged by the decision itself, but by the fact that he only learned about it when he was searching the Internet and stumbled on the posting on a radio message board -- 10 days after the FCC called the broadcaster's association.

"They never sent me anything," he said.

The government doesn't care about his qualifications to run as much as it cares about censoring his ideas, he said.

Meanwhile some of the few stations that were running his advertisements -- including the Clear Channel stations in Springfield -- will now stop running his ads, according to a statement from the company.

Dewayne Gandy of Eagle Broadcasting in Aurora said his company has not had a chance to review the ruling, and he would like to review the FCC decision before deciding.

Grandy said his stations decided to run the ads because advice he received was that Miller was a legitimate candidate. His station did not receive any backlash from running the ads, which ran with disclaimers citing the parts of the law they were following both before and after Miller's ads.

"We just tried to educate everyone that at that time we believed he was a candidate," said Grandy. "No one could give us a different ruling, or no one was willing to," he said.

Miller said the FCC's unwritten ruling is just too vague for him not to challenge it.

Who, Miller asked a reporter, should get to decide who a legitimate candidate is?

The candidate Alvin Greene won a Democratic primary campaign in June to run for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina even though he didn't campaign, Miller said.

Miller said he's more active than Greene.

"I bought 257 ads on eight radio stations. Is that not campaigning?"

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Glenn Miller for Senate 2010
 
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