Although Senator Olympia Snowe’s visit with the DGA PAC Leadership Council represented the first of its kind, the Republican Senator from Maine is by no means a stranger to DGA legislative issues and DGA support. In fact, she represents one of our strongest allies in Congress, and in 2003 she received the DGA Honor for her unwavering support of the Guild’s runaway production legislative efforts. As President Michael Apted said at the start of the March 24 meeting, “We have no better friend in Washington than Senator Olympia Snowe.”
One of the leading moderates in Congress, Senator Snowe is a vital force and critical vote on many issues. She has been an independent decision-maker since her early years in public service, as Leadership Council Co-Chair Taylor Hackford confirmed in his opening remarks. “What is truly great about Olympia Snowe,” he said, “is that she has a very strong sense of ethics – a very strong sense of what she believes in. No matter what the circumstances, she always votes her conscience.”
Senator Snowe sits on two Committees that are of major importance to the DGA’s legislative agenda — the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The former, which deals with tax and trade related issues, was the Committee through which our runaway production incentive legislation had to pass before the full Senate could vote. Because of her position on the Finance Committee, the Guild’s relationship with Senator Snowe began and grew. She was one of the original co-sponsors of our runaway production legislation in both 2001 and 2003, and her enduring support helped lead us to the victory we achieved last year when our runaway tax provision was one of 50 included in the “American Jobs Creation Act of 2004.”
Her role on the Senate Commerce Committee puts Senator Snowe in an important position on other issues that affect the creative and economic protection of Guild members’ work — piracy, media consolidation and content control among them. Her duties on the Commerce Committee include oversight of the Federal Communications Commission, where issues of digital piracy protection, “indecency” fines, and media ownership rules are debated.
The intimate and informal lunch provided an opportunity for the Leadership Council to thank the Senator, and, equally important, to remind her that the Guild is not a short-term, single-issue player on the federal scene; instead it has a long-term and sophisticated legislative agenda. “We’re not a one-trick pony,” said Hackford. “There are many issues that are of paramount interest to us — from copyright protection and piracy, to indecency, to media consolidation.”
Senator Snowe affirmed that the DGA’s legislative agenda is an important one. “You have a lot at stake,” she said. “And America has, frankly, a lot at stake. If we lose your ingenuity and your creativity, if it goes outsourcing abroad because we as a government have failed to protect you and to provide the adequate safeguards — when it comes to piracy, for example — then we have failed to do our jobs.”
Digital piracy, she said, is a monumental problem that extends far beyond U.S. borders. “Frankly, I think stolen ingenuity is a global epidemic that has profound moral and economic implications to our country and globally as well. And it’s something that we need to address,” the Senator said. “People need to understand — it’s not just simply stealing … The Framers of the Constitution recognized intellectual property rights were sacred rights — basic rights that needed to be protected and were therefore ensconced in our constitution.
“So when we see what’s happening today on such a widespread basis, when young people don’t even understand what they’re doing — appropriating and copying and distributing — there’s a major problem. And it requires all of us to be involved as a partnership, not looking at us in government as people who don’t understand, people who are a barrier or impediment to the problem, but looking at us as a solution.”
With regard to media consolidation, the Senator encouraged the Guild to work with Washington and especially with her Commerce Committee. Referring to last year’s historic Federal Court of Appeals ruling to overturn the controversial loosening of media ownership rules, the Senator said, “No one thought it was possible that the courts would reverse an FCC decision, but they did. The FCC had more public outcry on the issue of media consolidation than on any other issue that has ever come before them. I think it’s telling about how you can make a difference, if you know you’re right and you can work within the system to build support — which you at the DGA have already proven you can do very effectively.”
Leadership Council Co-Chair Paris Barclay brought up another major issue of concern for DGA members — indecency legislation, which is currently being debated in Washington. “As a filmmaker,” Barclay said, “virtually anything I’ve done can be considered indecent by someone. This has such a chilling effect on everything we do.”
The Senator agreed. “We cannot draft legislation or pass a law that’s going to have such a chilling effect,” she said. “There are a lot of things available and, of course, you want to make sure the kids aren’t watching inappropriate programming or channels. But frankly, there are some things people have to assume responsibility for. We have the ratings, we have the warning systems and those things work to a degree — but it does require people being involved.”
In closing, Senator Snowe imparted her aim as a public servant and her longtime collaborative approach to legislating. “I see bi-partisanship and consensus building as the only means by which we can extricate ourselves from the polarization of partisanship, which has brought the deliberative process in the United States Senate to a grinding halt. It is certainly not to the American people’s benefit. I am determined to do everything that I can, as long as I’m there, to make a difference and to reverse that.” |
