Statewide Franchise Illegal? Detroit Sues Comcast 183
jqpublic13 writes "The City of Detroit, Michigan, is suing Comcast's local subsidiary citing a 2006 agreement which the City says violates the constitutions of both the United States and the state of Michigan. They claim that a federal act from 1984 supersedes the local agreement. Comcast has 20 days to respond."
Re:Detroit is broke (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably, but it looks like they have a case. It will hinge on whether Comcast is considered a "public utility".
Michigan Constitution, Article 7, Paragraph 29:
No person, partnership, association or corporation, public or private, operating a public utility shall have the right to the use of the highways, streets, alleys or other public places of any county, township, city or village for wires, poles, pipes, tracks, conduits or other utility facilities, without the consent of the duly constituted authority of the county, township, city or village; or to transact local business therein without first obtaining a franchise from the township, city or village. Except as otherwise provided in this constitution the right of all counties, townships, cities and villages to the reasonable control of their highways, streets, alleys and public places is hereby reserved to such local units of government.
Only game in town and ... (Score:4, Interesting)
They still cant do the isp/telco basics. Did the feds also hand out tax breaks for the above too?
Could be time to roll and dig your own, see if a little community organizing gets dark fiber found and schools supported.
Ha, a bad interpertation by Detroit (Score:2, Interesting)
The United States Constitution is the charter for the federal government. It creates an entity known as the "United States". In numerous statutes, the "United States" is confined to federal possessions: D.C. and its territories. There is also no such thing as federal "common law". The Constitution governs itself, interstate commerce (see "commerce clause [wikimedia.org]") international trade, wars, etc, state's limitations. It does NOT create a parent government. It creates a government that only operates under certain conditions, namely interstate commerce (The FDA, FCC, FTC, SEC, etc, all are created under the commerce clause) Additionally and originally, the bill of rights was used to supply rights to citizens fo the federal government. But after the civil war, the 10th and 14th amendments brought everyone under the protection of the constitution. That was validated yesterday in the McDonald case...
Here, Detroit is saying that intrAstate commerce (the state franchise is illegal) because of federal law. That is preposterous, The federal government does not have jurisdiction. If you claim it does, then that is an educated reading of Article IV Section 2.
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. "
What they fail to mention is the 10th Amendment [wikimedia.org]. The Detroit interpretation is ignoring the fact that unless there is an enabling statute, the federal law is void. It would make the 10th amendment at odds with the article, and void both provisions. It would be impossible to reserve any power to the states if federal law trumps state law. We've avoided this so far by having the federal only govern international and interstate commerce.
Re:Detroit is broke (Score:3, Interesting)
I hear a lot of people saying Comcast is "ingoring the contract they signed". I'd like to hear a few more facts before jumping on that bandwagon.
The contract was pretty old. A contract with a term that long usually has termination clauses. Have you read the contract to know if it has such clauses? Do you know if Comcast exercised them properly?
Granted, if they did, and if the law on which they were relying when they decided to abandon that contract gets overturned, then they'll likely find themselves needing to negotiate a new contract with the city.
I'm no fan of most cable companies. I've not dealt with Comcast but am not impressed with their reputation. However, I don't think you can reasonably hold that they're responsible for knowing that the state law isn't valid (if indeed it isn't). I've argued the other side of that issue when there were obvious individual rights violations going on (e.g. AT&T allegedly cooperating with illegal wiretaps), but that isn't the case here.
If they assumed it was a valid law and granted them authority to operate in Detroit, then the original contract becomes superfluous to them and as a for-profit business their only option would be to try to jettison it. The only thing left to blame them for would be if their original contract really didn't have a termination clause (or they didn't follow the rules of that clause). Even then it's a murky area; if Comcast was no longer getting meaningful consideration from the contract (because what they get is something they already have - authority to operate as a momopoly in Detroit) then arguably it was no longer a valid contract.
IMO the correct course of action for Detroit would have been to challenge the law directly, then sort things out (preferably non-adversarially) with Comcast once the status of the law was determined.
Re:Detroit is broke (Score:3, Interesting)
Nonsense.
The FCC has been regulating cable service in a wide variety of ways for decades. It doesn't matter whether you or I think the 10th Amendment reserves such regulatory authority to the states; the US Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld both Congress's authority to regulate cable television services and its ability to delegate that authority to the FCC. Including many cases where FCC actions modify or even nullify contract terms between the cable company and the local franchising authority.
The recent ruling was extremely narrow: it held that the FCC had failed to tie its network neutrality action to specific statutory authority. It did not say that Congress didn't have the authority to require network neutrality; it did not say that Congress couldn't delegate such authority to the FCC; it said that Congress had not currently provided the FCC with statutory authority to require network neutrality. And the ruling applied only to internet access services, not to voice or video. Inasmuch as this Detroit/Comcast case appears to be purely about video service, the recent Supreme Court opinion has exactly zero bearing.
Re:They have a point (Score:3, Interesting)
That story was true for virtually all of the Founders.
What? What?
In the 1700's if you owned more than one slave you were considered wealthy by the people of the time.
Frankly, I'm not sure why people modded you informative other than the last part.
But the truth of the matter is that American merchants did agitate the revolution in the beginning and the UK responded in most likely the worst possible way by warrentless searches, soldier quartering, etc etc in which the founding fathers objected too.
In that regard, I do believe Thomas Jefferson would have no liked the idea of state monopolies we have have with comcast, as it does seem a bit like the British East India company.