Who Should Control the House & Senate Cameras?

C-SPAN has been lobbying to introduce their cameras on the House and Senate floors for 43 years. They’ve re-upped their campaign with a new GOP Congress bent on transparency. Does it matter?

As a fresh-faced 23 year-old staff assistant of three months for an Arkansas Congressman, I remember the day live broadcast coverage came to the US House of Representatives.

It was March 19, 1979. I don’t know how he negotiated it, but then-US Rep. Albert Gore Jr. (D-TN) was the first to deliver a speech before live cameras. It had been a brainchild and labor of love by Brian Lamb, the estimable and affable former Cablevision executive and Indiana native who conceived of the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network - C-SPAN - to air live proceedings of Congress. Just months before, Ted Turner launched Cable News Network (CNN), part of the transformation of media that continues relentlessly today.

I remember those first years. As a House press secretary, I recall taking my boss, freshman US Rep. John Hiler (R-IN), for a C-SPAN interview, sporting a black tie outfit just before attending huge annual GOP fundraising event featuring President Reagan.

As previously mentioned, more than a decade later, C-SPAN asked me in 1996 to record several historical vinettes of various Senate-side rooms that you will still find in their estimable archives. I love C-SPAN, one of the truly last non-partisan media outfits in Washington - the very definition of “fair and balanced,” with no apologies to Fox News. Somewhere between 10 million and 40 million Americans are estimated to be watching one of C-SPAN’s channels at any given moment. I subscribe to their YouTube.com site and watch it frequently.

Of course, various proceedings of Congress had been televised off and on for decades. The Army-McCarthy hearings of the 1950s. I recall vividly my high school teachers wheeling in televisions into the aged classrooms of Washington (OK) High School (zip code 73093) to watch the Watergate hearings of early 1974, during my senior year. But other than some closed-circuit cameras installed and tested around 1977 did the House or Senate ever consider allowing live publicly-televised coverage of its proceedings.

One major issue to be resolved was who would control the, cameras? C-SPAN wanted control over the seven cameras on the House floor. The House said, no thank you, we’ll control the cameras. Later, the House introduced closed-captioning. Since, C-SPAN has asked to add their own.

Years later, the debate over camera control has returned with a vengeance.

Those proceedings during the early went fairly smoothly during its first months. But with the election of Newt Gingrich to the House (on his third try) in 1978, and especially with the election of Ronald Reagan and 54 new GOP House members in 1980, these renegades discovered that through the use of “special orders,” they could command post-session prime time coverage on C-SPAN to give speeches on the GOP agenda. Aside from Gingrich, his key allies began developing national followings. Rep. Bob Walker (R-PA). Rep. Bob Bauman (R-MD). Vin Weber (R-MN). Among others.

Angry over their perfectly legitimate commandeering of the floor, then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill ordered the cameras to pan the floor during special orders to show Gingrich and allies speaking to a mostly empty chamber. Democrats eventually followed suit with their own special orders, but they often paled in comparison. Charts and photos eventually became a thing to help dramatize key points, whether on spending, taxes, or other issues.

I also remember June 2, 1986, when live coverage came to the Senate. Some of the Senate’s senior members opposed televised coverage, but then-Majority Leader Bob Dole and Democratic leader Robert C. Byrd agreed to make it happen. They were fearful that the Senate would be eclipsed by the House and become the “forgotten chamber.” As with the House, the Senate would control the cameras, not C-SPAN, under the auspices of the Sergeant at Arms. The Secretary of the Senate would control closed-captioning.

The first Senator often credited for giving the first live televised speech from the Senate floor that day in 1986 is freshman Sen. Al Gore (D-TN). But I disagree. That title belongs, in my view, to Senate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), no matter how brief. Byrd would yield the floor to acting President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to recognize freshman Senator Gore for his subsequent and forgettable speech.

US Senate Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd delivers the first televised address of the US Senate in 1986, as Democratic whip Alan Cranston (D-CA) writes notes.

Rumor has it that Gore cut a deal with Dole for that “first speech” in exchange for a vote. It would not be the only time that “Prime Time Al,” as he became known, would do that. In 1991, then-Senate GOP Whip Alan Simpson (R-WY) tells the story of how Gore came to the GOP cloakroom for more time, during prime time, to give a speech in support of President George H.W. Bush’s Kuwait Gulf War resolution.

As Bob and I discussed the debate schedule for the next day, a senator walked into our cloakroom and asked to speak to us. The senator's appearance and request surprised Bob and me. It surprised us because the senator was a Democrat, coming to ask for a favor.

Who was that man? It was Tennessee Senator Al Gore, Jr. Senator Gore got right to the point: "How much time will you give me if I support the President?" In layman's terms, Gore was asking how much debate time we would be willing to give him to speak on the floor if he voted with us. "How much time will the Democrats give you?" Senator Dole asked in response.

"Seven minutes," was the droning response. I'll give you 15 minutes," Senator Dole said. "And I'll give you five of mine, so you can have 20 minutes," I offered.

Gore seemed pleased, but made no final commitment, promising only to think it over. Senator Gore played hard to get. He had received his time. But now he wanted prime time. And Senator Dole and I knew it.

After Senator Gore left, Senator Dole asked Howard Greene, the Republican Senate secretary, to call Gore's office and promise that he would try to schedule Gore's 20 minutes during prime time, thus ensuring plenty of coverage in the news cycle. Later that night, Senator Gore called Greene and asked if Senator Dole had scheduled him for a prime-time speaking slot.

When Greene said nothing had been finalized yet, Gore erupted, "Damnit, Howard! If I don't get 20 minutes tomorrow I'm going to vote the other way."

Gore was elected Vice President of the United States less than two years later and narrowly lost the 2000 election for President in an election decided after the Supreme Court stepped in after a contentious recount in Florida. After retiring from politics, he launched Current TV (which he eventually sold to Al Jazerra for a handsome price) and has continued his Climate Change advocacy from his palacial home in Tennessee. Many of the predictions from his famous tome, “Earth in the Balance,” and his subsequent movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” have proven wildly wrong.

Gore was Vice President - and President of the US Senate - during my service as Secretary. He never spoke a word to me, even the time we swore in new members or escorted Senators, two by two, to the House Chamber for Joint Sessions. I thought he was weird. He seemed perpetually stoic and uncomfortable, even incapable of conducting small talk with Senators. I am grateful Gore was never President.

So, after 43 years in the House and now 36 years in the Senate, C-SPAN is back with their never ending request to control or introduce new cameras. Should they? Does it matter?

A few wags on Twitter have proffered poorly worded questions to demonstrate massive public support for C-SPAN control over cameras in the House and Senate chambers (be honest, how much have you really thought about that?).

Questions like this are clearly designed to engender a specific response, the results of which are useless. Unless, of course, you’re trolling for new followers.

C-SPAN, unbeknownst to me, did apparently place of few of their own cameras on the House floor during the opening days of the new Congress, plus allow still photographers to operate from the galleries. I wonder how that decision was made, and who made it? They are now lobbying again to place them back. Here’s their case.

There’s no question that the four days the House was held hostage by as many as 20 Republicans created some interesting graphics, including the almost-confrontation between incoming House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL). My favorite was this one, a photo taken by a friend, Al Drago, now a photographer for the New York Times. Pictures really do say a thousand words.

In this photo, US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a McCarthy loyalist, is seen handing her cell phone with President “DT” Donald Trump on the phone, to House renegade Matt Rosendale (R-MT). He waves off the call. Well done, Al. As a former news photographer myself, photos like this are one in a million. The ability to take photos like this from the galleries typically are not allowed.

Short story. As a 21-year-old Oklahoma State Capitol correspondent in 1977, I sat in the galleries as the House of Representatives was racing towards “sine die” adjournment. I took a few photos and was immediate harrassed by the gallery staff, directed by members who DID NOT LIKE this young reporter taking photos of them in the chamber.

The House Speaker standoff was clearly a historic occasion, the first multi-ballot election in 100 years, and requiring the most votes since the Civil War. All the elements of a good story were present - unpredictability, intrigue, confrontations, and colorful players. That doesn’t normally happen in the otherwise staid and stilted House Chamber as Members debate national defense reauthorization bills and the like.

The questions are this: Why do the chambers (House and Senate) control the video feeds of official proceedings, and what would change if C-SPAN were given control? Would a new arrangement really improve “transparency?”

First of all, the chambers are the chambers. That is the stage. Members speak, engage in side conversations, and vote. Cameras are always spanning the chamber, especially during roll call votes. What’s to see or not see? The chambers kept control to protect themselves from moments like yawns, etc., that do nothing more than embarrass them and detract from the issues at hand.

Second, what do the feeds not provide that news networks require to help tell the story? They have press galleries. What do the current video feeds not meaningfully capture that C-SPAN would? Name for me a legislative chamber outside of Canada, Australia, or Great Britain with equal or greater transparency and access?

C-SPAN is a terrific organization, probably America’s last truly non-partisan and largely unfiltered media outlet. Their call-in and interview shows are unbiased, highly professional, and informative. Brian Lamb, Susan Swain, Lew Ketchum, and others I’ve met and worked with at C-SPAN over the past several decades operated with the best intent, with only one ethical breach (lying, conflict of interest) over a presidential debate involving former C-SPAN executive Steve Scully, a former staffer to then-Senator Joe Biden. But they have yet to make the case that greater control over the video feeds would improve coverage in a way that would genuinely enhance the public’s knowledge and understanding of Congress.

I get why people recoil at the idea of “government control” of video feeds. But that is a mischaracterization of what is transpiring. There’s no censorship here. If the new Speaker and House GOP majority want to continue their experiment with C-SPAN cameras in the House galleries, that’s fine. But viewers shouldn’t really expect an enhanced media experience, other than perhaps allowing more still photographers like Drago. But that’s of no matter to C-SPAN, and of greater potential consequence.

That’s probably why past Congresses, Democrat or Republican, have ignored C-SPAN’s entreaties. It really doesn’t matter, and you, the viewers, aren’t clamouring for change.