47 U.S.C. § 399
Section 399 · Support of political candidates prohibited
Amended 6 times on record
Applied in 15 court decisions — leading case Clarke v. United States (1990)
Most recently applied in Minority Television Project, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission (December 2013)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
No noncommercial educational broadcasting station may support or oppose any candidate for political office.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1988—Pub. L. 100–626, in section catchline, substituted “Support of” for “Editorializing and support of”, and in text, struck out provisions which prohibited editorializing by noncommercial educational broadcasting station which receives grant from Corporation under subpart C of this part.
1981—Pub. L. 97–35 revised subsec. (a) into existing provisions and, as so revised, added requirement respecting grant under subpart C of this part, and struck out subsec. (b), which related to program recording of broadcasts where issues of public importance are discussed.
1976—Subsec. (b)(5). Pub. L. 94–309 added par. (5).
1973—Pub. L. 93–84 designated existing provisions as subsec. (a) and added subsec. (b).