WASHINGTON, DC (July 31, 2008) – The federal shield law for journalists that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) promised to bring before the Senate before the summer recess, was stalled by Senate Republicans in a 51-to-43 vote that failed to move the legislation forward. The bill needed at least 60 votes in favor to proceed.
The bill could have a better chance of moving forward after the presidential election, because both party's presumptive candidates have expressed support for it while the Bush Administration has threatened to veto it.
The Free Flow of Information Act, as it is called, would protect journalists from having to reveal sources in federal court.
The Senate vote to block the federal shield law from moving forward had other motives, and that was that those voting against it were refusing to begin debate on it until the Senate addresses a bill that provides more domestic oil and gas production.
The fact that the federal shield law failed to move forward appears to have less to do with the details of the bill and more to do with being caught in the political process, as Republicans wanted to force the Senate to remain focused on the energy issue, which has been stalemated in Congress.
Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) had introduced a new version of the federal shield law on Tuesday that included some provision to make it easier for the government to force journalists to disclose their sources if the case involved the leaking of government classified information.
Last October a similar federal shield law was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 398-21, and at the beginning of July more than 40 state attorneys general came out in support of the Senate's bill, which has been a long time coming and had the support of a media coalition of more than 60 organizations (including the National Press Photographers Association).
NPPA's general legal counsel Mickey H. Osterreicher said that the organizations working to push the Free Flow of Information bill forward, the Shield Law Coalition of media groups, will be working during the Senate's August recess to make sure that the 110th Congress considers the bill before this year's session ends.
For more than three years, NPPA has worked for the passage of a federal shield law for journalists and supported the Senate version that was being considered this week.
