Public Broadcast Supporters Focus on Rohrabacher

In a test of wills between supporters of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Republican Congress seeking to slash its federal funding, audiences focused their rage this week on Orange County Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, flooding his office with about 1,200 calls and faxes.

The lobbying campaign was prompted by National Public Radio stations in Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, New York and Denver after the broadcasters learned that Rohrabacher had proposed reducing funding by $282 million in 1996 and 1997. That is twice as much as the amount earlier approved by the House Appropriations Committee.

But Rohrabacher decided at the last minute not to offer his amendment after an even more drastic proposal by Rep. Philip M. Crane (R-Ill.) was shot down by House members by an almost 5-to-1 ratio.

Rohrabacher said he was not withdrawing from the fight, but that Crane’s failed proposal “took the winds out of the sails of what could have been a more successful attempt at trimming the funding.”

Earlier Wednesday, public broadcasters said they were furious that the Republicans did not warn them of their plans to cut even deeper into their budgets.

“We consider this a sneak attack,” said Ruth Seymour, general manager of KCRW-FM in Santa Monica. “I believe this was their plan all along . . . to make sure we’re not prepared. If we had known about this, the entire country would have organized against” Rohrabacher.

The Huntington Beach congressman said he believed that federal rules were broken when stations lobbied on the air “against political decisions. . . . I think it’s questionable, but I am not going to jump up and down and do a war dance.”

While Rohrabacher was the stations’ target, Crane’s amendment was more severe. Crane wanted current federal subsidies for public broadcasting to be reduced by 33% in each of the next three years.

“It’s history, guys. Open your eyes,” Crane argued across the aisle to congressional Democrats supporting continued federal funding. “We are talking about letting the private sector run it as it always should have.”

Rohrabacher is among several Republicans who have led the fight to eliminate federal subsidies for public broadcasting, which now account for about 14% of annual revenues at most public radio and television affiliates across the country.

Conservatives consider it a liberal-leaning and poorly managed operation. In testimony before a House subcommittee earlier this year, Rohrabacher called the funding “a subsidy for America’s affluent.”

Last February, supporting his argument that subscribers and not the federal government should fund public broadcasters, Rohrabacher appeared on KCRW during its subscription drive, asking for private contributions. Nine other lawmakers made similar appeals.

Public broadcasters learned of Rohrabacher’s proposal to double the federal cuts on Sunday evening and began scrambling to stop it. Radio stations in California, New York and Colorado began airing editorials encouraging listeners to call Rohrabacher, providing the telephone and fax numbers to his Washington office.

Noting that Rohrabacher had subscribed this year for the first time, Seymour said in her editorial that public broadcasting is “the symbol of everything (House leaders) dislike about American society.” She also instructed listeners to contact Rohrabacher before Wednesday.

“You’re all that stands between us and the attack dogs of the radical right,” she said.

Public broadcasters also have maintained that a drastic cut in federal funding would force them to cut their most popular programs, which include “Sesame Street” and “Masterpiece Theatre” on television and “All Things Considered” on radio. Some stations would go out of business entirely, they said.

By Wednesday afternoon, Rohrabacher’s office had received between 600 and 700 phone calls and a five-inch-thick stack of about 500 faxes. Each hour after the editorials aired, nearly all his staff members had to answer phones. The calls accelerated Wednesday when stations around the country picked up the Santa Monica station’s call to action, but about 90% came from California, a Rohrabacher spokesman said.

Rohrabacher rebutted Seymour’s editorial by pointing to the historic success of the February fund-raising drive. (Seymour said the station raised $1.87 million, about $135,000 more than any other campaign in the station’s history.)

“At a time when Congress is struggling to fund programs for children, job training, welfare and other essential services, providing entertainment and information through CPB isn’t, and shouldn’t be, a priority,” Rohrabacher said.

Seymour said the phone and fax campaign was the only means available on short notice. Stations had prepared for the original cuts recommended by the appropriations committee and were not ready to face the harder hit from Rohrabacher.

“I don’t really mean to harass,” Seymour said. “But we were really upset. We were prepared to work with them to find other alternatives.”

Martinez is a Times staff writer and Richwine is a States News Service writer.