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from: Forida Consumer Viewpoint

Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Charlie's Consumer Credibility Disappearing

Governor Charlie Crist is losing credibility as a consumer advocate because of recent bill signings. Most notably, the statewide cable franchising bill was opposed by every consumer group in the state and national consumer groups including Consumer Federation of America, Consumer's Union, ACORN, PIRG, and FreePress.

Charlie evidently relied on the support of AARP and Mike Twomey. AARP is far from a consumer group and the issues AARP and Twomey brought up were addressed by the real consumer groups. The AARP issues really weren't relevant to the cable argument.

While many people think Twomey is a consumer advocate, I will take the opinion of Dr. Mark Cooper, of the Consumer Federation, any day of the week. Cooper is a Phd from Yale and has an extensive resume on consumer issues including many appearances before Congress, in court, and before regulatory bodies. I would say there is no consumer expert on telecommunications more respected than Dr. Mark Cooper.

AARP's arguments involved Lifeline and phone rates. Consumer groups argued that Lifeline had no business in a cable bill and should be addressed on its own. Lifeline was in the bill as a "carrot" for AARP so they had a reason to support the bill, even though it was completely unrelated to the rest of the bill. Charlie should not have gone along with this charade.

The second reason involved supposed phone rate increases. Phone companies aren't dumb enough to raise their rates. Customers are shifting to cable and internet phone as quickly as they can. A rate increase would only make them drop their land lines quicker. The rate increase was another lame excuse to support the bill. Essentially, it was a "straw man."

Sure, Charlie supported consumers against the insurance companies. But that was easy. Now he's opposed consumers on the phone bill, and also made it harder for the consumer groups to register voters and petition the government. Only lightly disguised in Charlie's election reform bill is language allowing opposition groups to literally strip signatures off petitions and increasing penalties on third party voter registration.

While the Governor deserves praise for moving the state to paper ballots, he should have done more to oppose the anti-petition language and the anti-voter registration language. A governor with a 73% approval rating shouldn't have to make back room deals selling out citizens to get his major priorities passed.

Governor Crist, we're disappointed you sold out to the phone companies, especially in light of the reputation they have in Tallahassee and price many politicians paid for the last big phone company folly. I didn't think you wanted to spend your political capital on them, of all people.

You'll probably say you'll work to undo the damage to voter registration efforts and the people's right to petition their government, but you know the Legislature will never make that right. Why should they? How can the "people's Governor" not fight for the people on these things?

Here's hoping you learned how evil people can be in Tallahassee. Maybe you're just naive. But naive people don't often get to be Governor. More likely, you just made a political calculation. I'm afraid you'll be talking to the insurance companies next.

Posted by Bill Newton