Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who was House majority leader from 2003 to 2005, said the Federal Communications Commission has no legal authority to repeal the National Television Ownership Rule. Despite DeLay’s warning, the Trump FCC appears ready to eliminate the rule at its meeting this week.

DeLay wrote an op-ed describing how he helped write the law that prohibited any single broadcast station owner from reaching more than 39 percent of all TV households in the US. DeLay said that only Congress, not the Trump FCC, can change the cap because the 39 percent limit is specified in US law and wasn’t chosen by the commission.

DeLay gave his view in an op-ed for The Daily Wire yesterday, less than three weeks after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced a plan to eliminate the cap. The FCC is scheduled to vote on Carr’s proposal on Thursday.

“I am a Republican,” DeLay wrote. “I support deregulation and the Trump administration. But my ultimate loyalty rests with the Constitution, which gives certain prerogatives to Congress. Regulatory agencies cannot defy or modify laws enacted by Congress. If Chairman Carr wants to raise the statutory cap, he should ask Congress to pass a law giving him authority to do that.”

DeLay left his post as majority leader in September 2005 and resigned from Congress in 2006 after being indicted on money laundering and conspiracy charges stemming from a campaign finance scheme. He was convicted by a jury in 2010, but the conviction was overturned by a Texas appeals court in 2013.

Carr would be first to test whether FCC can kill cap

The TV ownership cap was originally implemented by the FCC and changed several times before Congress directed the FCC to set it at its current level of 39 percent. The FCC first used its authority to implement a 25 percent nationwide audience reach cap in 1985. In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress directed the FCC to amend its rules to increase the cap to 35 percent.