William Tauzin: “I have with me a small chart that shows the result of judge-made law when it comes to telecommunications. What we just…”

“I have with me a small chart that shows the result of judge-made law when it comes to telecommunications. What we just debated on the manager's amendment was to end the system of the LATA lines, the lines on the map drawn by the judge regulating communications policy in America. Mr. Chairman, this is one of those LATA lines, a line of restriction of competition. This line runs through Louisiana, through one of my parishes in Louisiana, separating the town of Hornbeck and Leesville. Mr. Chairman, they are in the same parish. The school board in that parish, in order to communicate from one office to the other, has to buy a line that runs from Shreveport to Lafayette back to Leesville at a cost per year of $43,000 more than they would have to pay if they could simply call 16 miles across these two communities. Mr. Chairman, the court-ordered line has cost that school board $43,000. This is the kind of court-made law we avoid in this bill. Let us not give it back to the Justice Department. Let us write communications law in this Chamber.”