Communications bill introduced for Giffords

A week after he visited Cochise County, Republican U.S. Rep. Ted Poe of Texas introduced a bill to ensure areas along the border without cell phone service will see the problem corrected. Poe, who represents a district in the Houston area, visited ranchers and toured the border in the county at the request of the wounded Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, whose 8th District in Arizona includes all of the county. Poe is calling the proposal the “Southern Borderlands Public Safety Communications Act.” On the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday, he said “I am filing legislation that is the idea of Ms. Giffords,” and noted it is in memory of Cochise County rancher Rob Krentz, who was murdered on his own property in March of last year. “News reports indicate Mr. Krentz was in a cell phone dead zone when he was murdered, and this bill will provide people in remote areas on the dangerous bolder area with cell phone service to call for help,” Poe said. As he talked about Krentz, he pointed to the blowup of an article in Tucson Weekly, a Wick Communications paper with a story about the slain rancher. A copy of the publication had been given to President Barack Obama by Giffords, her spokesman C.J. Karamargin said...more