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death knell for the midsize American family sedan, Detroit and its allies
insisted. “It means smaller cars. It means less safe cars.” They’d been say-
ing that since the early 1970s during the Arab oil embargo, Gorton noted.
By dragging their heels, the Big Three were losing the battle to their agile
overseas competition and wasting millions of barrels of oil. “I refuse to
accept the notion that American ingenuity can’t produce vehicles that are
simultaneously safer, more fuel efficient and less harmful to the environ-
ment.” Gorton’s advocacy of aggressive Corporate Average Fuel Economy
standards was repeatedly rebuffed by industry lobbyists and conserva-
tives during his 18 years in the Senate. The CAFE standard for 2012
through 2016 was still only 34.1 mpg.^5
Gorton also flexed his old consumer-protection muscles, playing a key
role in successful legislation to require dual airbags in all cars and light
trucks as well as stronger roll-bars and head-injury and side-impact pro-
tection. He negotiated a tough toy-safety law and teamed with Al Gore to
push legislation to impose competition on the cable TV industry after a
dispute that deprived millions of New Yorkers of their inalienable right to
view Yankees, Rangers and Knicks games. The senators said the arro-
gance of cable providers prompted them to think better of their 1984 votes
to deregulate the industry. Rather than improving service, they said the
industry had gouged consumers with huge rate hikes and increasingly
“tiered” offerings. Popular new channels invariably cost more. Regional
telephone companies ought to be allowed to offer TV service through
their growing fiber-optic networks, the senators said. Gorton, Gore and
Adams were in the majority in 1992 when the Senate joined the House in
voting to override Bush’s veto of legislation subjecting cable franchise
holders to FCC and local oversight. It marked Congress’s first override of
a Bush veto.^6
goonRt ’s pRo-choice votes and his break with Bush on fetal-tissue re-
search earned him some grudging kudos from liberals. They were more
impressed by his support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and
the National Endowment for the Arts. He demanded “balanced program-
ming,” however, and opposed federal funding of fellowships such as the
one that produced the notorious “Piss Christ,” a photo of a Jesus figure
submerged in the artist’s urine. Gorton at first had joined the move to
ban public funding of artists whose work is “patently offensive to the aver-
age person.” The debate over how to define average promptly degenerated
into gibberish that had Gorton rolling his eyes. Jesse Helms upped the
ante to include anything “indecent” or “denigrating.” Gorton, his friend