Lawmaker Calls For Comcast To 'Be Broken Up'

A U.S. congressman is calling for Comcast “to be broken up,” days before the cable giant is set to face-off against Byron Allen, an African American Hollywood entertainment mogul, in a Supreme Court case that some say could make it harder to bring racial discrimination lawsuits.

In a Thursday letter, Congressman Bobby Rush (D -Illinois) told Comcast CEO Brian Roberts that he is “dismayed" the company may undercut the country’s oldest civil rights law, the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Rush is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

A Comcast spokesperson said Friday that Rush has no power to break up Comcast.

Rep. Bobby Rush

Rush claimed in the letter that Comcast has failed to live up to its promises, at the time of acquiring NBC Universal, of making its programming more inclusive. Those promises, critical in getting influential minority groups in D.C. to support the big merger, were merely for “political expediency,” Rush, a Democratic representative, noted.

“Comcast has enjoyed the largesse — as has the cable industry, in general — of the African American and other minority communities and has reached such prominence that it now disregard these communities with a cold, callous corporate insensitivity that is stultifying, arrogant, harmful, and intensely painful," Rush claimed.

At the heart of the dispute is a 2015 lawsuit where Allen sued Comcast for $20 billion, alleging that the cable company discriminated against him based on race when it refused to carry his channels.

Comcast has maintained that business reasons, and not race, are behind its refusal to carry Allen’s channels, most of which focus on courts, comedy and pets. After he filed suit, Allen’s Entertainment Studios also bought the Weather Channel, which Comcast does carry.

Supreme Court is set to hear the case this Wednesday.