The Communications Act: A Legislative History of the Major Amendments, 1934-1996.

• Author: Malone, William
• Position: Review

THE COMMUNICATIONS ACT: A LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE MAJOR AMENDMENTS, 1934-1996, Max D. Paglin ed., Pike & Fischer, Inc., 1999, 438 pages.

A second volume of the important literary legacy of the Golden Jubilee Commission on Telecommunications has recently appeared beside the well-thumbed copy of its sister volume, A Legislative History of the Communications Act of 1934,(1) in the library of every diligent practitioner of communications law. The first volume documents the legislative history of the Communications Act of 1934 ("1934 Act"), which combined the common carrier jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission with the radio jurisdiction of the Radio Commission to create the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC").(2) The recently released companion volume, The Communications Act: A Legislative History of the Major Amendments, 1934-1996,(3) brings the legislative history forward to late summer 1998, including the Telecommunications Act of 1996.(4)

The first volume was produced under the editorship of the late Max D. Paglin, a former general counsel and executive director of the FCC, during his role as executive director of the Golden Jubilee Commission on Telecommunications from 1984-99.(5) At the time of his death in mid-1999, work on the sequel had been largely completed, and Paglin had written the preface.(6) Two leading members of the bar, Joel Rosenbloom and James R. Hobson, discharged the final editorial responsibilities.(7)

The formats of the two volumes differ. The first volume features photographically reproduced pages of legislative documents from the 1933-34 period, sandwiched between four commentaries on the various titles of the 1934 Act and a topical index. It became obvious to the editors of the sequel early on that the second volume could not be fashioned in the same way. If nothing else, the sheer bulk of the legislative documents--some 20,000 pages--economically prohibited such an approach. Moreover, the formal legislative documents leading to the Cable Act of 1984, which became Title VI, had already been published under the auspices of the National Cable Television Association.(8)

In The Communications Act: A Legislative History of the Major Amendments, 1934-1996, the editors opted to cover the amendments in a number of essays. The volume opens with Margaret L. Tobey's chapter, Procedures for Awarding, Transferring, Renewing, and Revoking Licenses;(9) followed by William J. Byrnes's comprehensive chapter on...