Center for American Rights Campaigns Against TV Ownership Cap, Sees Higher Profile

When FCC Chairman Brendan Carr ordered the Media Bureau in January to reinstate CAR’s news distortion complaint against CBS and then the network "acquiesced to turn over the transcript" of 60 Minutes' interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, "all of a sudden it was like the Los Angeles Times was calling," Suhr said. "And, you know, I never thought in law school I was going to get quoted in like the Hollywood Reporter or Variety.”

CAR’s online “Lift the Cap” campaign consists of video banner ads that will run on conservative websites. It condemns Newsmax for opposing the ownership cap’s elimination and urges viewers to “tell Washington” to lift it to empower local TV news. CAR will also run a 30-second ad on Fox News in the Washington, D.C., designated market area as part of the campaign. “A strong conservative consensus exists to reform or outright repeal ownership limits on broadcasting,” says a landing page that CAR built for the campaign, which includes links to sources where conservatives such as former White House spokesperson Sean Spicer have endorsed broadcast ownership deregulation.

Suhr told us the campaign is intended to “help shape the narrative” and show that there's broad conservative agreement on lifting the cap and that doing so will empower broadcast groups rather than networks.

“Obviously, the chairman and all the commissioners having the hearing at the Commerce Committee is a big deal, and so we want to make sure going into that, that people know the consensus among conservatives is in favor of this,” Suhr said. “And though there might be one or two isolated outlier voices, the vast majority of conservative groups and leaders and folks [who are] aligned with the president support this.”

Along with Newsmax, the One America News Network and the Conservative Political Action Conference have voiced opposition to eliminating the national cap. Trump said in a social media post last month that if lifting the cap would let broadcast networks grow, he opposes it (see 2511240055).

In an email, Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy was dismissive of CAR’s campaign. “A group called the Center for American Rights -- no doubt a shill for industry trade groups -- says conservatives want the big networks to have more power, more reach, and more consolidation! Is this a joke?”

Suhr wouldn’t disclose the exact cost of the campaign but said it's currently “well into five figures.” Asked if any funding for the campaign was provided by Nexstar, Suhr said CAR doesn’t disclose its donors, and he couldn’t confirm or deny Nexstar’s involvement. “We get support from conservatives, and conservatives care about this as well as industry.” Nexstar didn't comment on whether it has provided any funding to CAR. Suhr told us that CAR isn’t pushing to lift the cap at Nexstar’s behest and that its series of filings on broadcast matters was originally intended to be a one-off but has mushroomed into the organization’s primary focus.

CAR Beginnings

CAR was started by its current chairman, Pat Hughes, after he left the Liberty Justice Center, a conservative public interest litigation firm where he spearheaded litigation against federal vaccine requirements and union contribution rules for federal workers. Suhr, who was an adviser to former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, also worked for the center, and he and Hughes both left after having differences of opinion with its board about the organization’s future, Suhr said. After Hughes started CAR in 2022, he brought Suhr on as president. Though CAR’s legal name on tax filings is the National Center for Liberty and Justice, it isn’t affiliated with the Liberty Justice Center, Suhr told us.

Before wading into FCC matters for the first time in 2024, CAR litigated against a law that delegated regulation of the horse racing industry to a private company. Filings in that case also list another nonprofit legal organization headed by Suhr and Hughes, the National Opportunity Project. CAR first became involved in FCC issues after the September 2024 debate between Harris and Trump, hosted by ABC.

"My chairman called me up after watching the debate and said, ‘How could this be? How could it be so one-sided?' And like any good lawyer, I said, 'I don’t know, let me go read the law.'" CAR filed a complaint at the FCC, and Suhr said he didn’t expect then for that sort of thing to be a major focus of the organization. “Shortly thereafter, we filed [a Federal Election Commission] complaint against the Washington Post. That went nowhere.” Suhr said that Carr reinstating CAR’s complaints -- after the prior FCC dismissed them -- attracted a great deal of publicity and showed him that CAR should pursue media issues.

“When that CBS comment period opened up, and it was clear [Carr] was going to do something with it,” Suhr said he knew media bias could be a big issue for CAR. He told CAR’s board a few months into 2025 that “we have a real opportunity here. The chairman is clearly open to reinvigorating the public interest.” He also said the high-profile media matters have led to an uptick in attention and donations for CAR. Pro Publica’s nonprofit explorer lists the National Center for Justice and Liberty -- CAR’s official legal name -- as having $197,000 in revenue and $84,000 in assets in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available.

Suhr told us that he hasn’t ever spoken with Trump about the issues CAR targets and that he has only ever briefly met with Carr. Instead, Suhr said CAR chooses issues in exactly the way that it appears to: After Trump posts a complaint about an issue of media bias, Suhr looks into it as a potential target for a filing. “Some would call it a bat signal.” He added that CAR only files on matters it can find a legal argument for in FCC precedent, although several communications attorneys have said the precedents that the group tends to rely on are questionable (see 2506110053).

"CAR's filings have been effective, but they've been effective only because we have an FCC Chairman willing to overlook his obligation to the law," said Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Chief Counsel Robert Corn-Revere, a former FCC chief of staff.

“The president has been saying we should yank licenses from the fake news networks for years. He said that in the first administration,” Suhr said. “We were really the first people to come along and say, ‘There's something to that.’” News networks aren't licensed by the FCC.