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from: STL Today

AT&T shows them the money

By Kevin McDermott
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
07/01/2007

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — As AT&T was lobbying this year for a controversial overhaul of Illinois' pay television laws, it was donating tens of thousands of dollars to the state lawmakers who would ultimately approve the measure, records show.

A Post-Dispatch review of campaign data found the telecom giant has been especially generous to the two lawmakers who were most instrumental in passing the bill, which is designed to help the company break into the pay television market.

The bill, if signed into law, will allow AT&T and other companies to get statewide approval to offer pay television packages to residents, instead of the current requirement of getting city-by-city approval as cable television companies have done.

Records show that AT&T donated at least $86,000 to Illinois politicians — most of them state legislators — between Jan. 1 and mid-April of this year. That period is the latest for which campaign records are available and is generally when the cable television issue was beginning to heat up in the Legislature.

"We were clearly talking about a David-and-Goliath situation (in terms of) the money spent on lobbying," said Barbara Popovic, who represented cities, nonprofit groups and public access channels that initially opposed the AT&T bill.

The records show that two of AT&T's favorite donation recipients in the past few years are the two lawmakers most directly responsible for getting the bill passed: Sen. James Clayborne, D-Belleville, and Rep. James Brosnahan, D-Oak Lawn. Both lawmakers were lead sponsors of the legislation, and both are chairmen of legislative committees that helped pass it.

Clayborne was unavailable for comment Friday. Brosnahan dismissed on Friday any suggestion that the AT&T donations to lawmakers give the appearance that the company was trying to buy legislation.

Records show that in the past four years Clayborne has been among the top recipients of AT&T donations to rank-and-file lawmakers, taking in more than $29,000 from the company or its employees since 2003. At least $6,500 of those contributions were made in the first three months of this year, as Clayborne was building support for the AT&T-backed legislation that would ultimately pass his Senate Energy and Environment Committee on its way to the governor.

"It is a great bill for competition, a great bill for the state of Illinois," Clayborne said on the Senate floor June 19, presenting the bill to his fellow senators, who subsequently passed it unanimously.

Brosnahan has accepted more than $10,000 from AT&T since 2003, with $4,000 of that donated since late last year, records show. His most recent donation from the company was $1,500 in mid-April — the only donation he received from any source that month, according to his campaign records. Six weeks later, he too would push the bill through a committee he heads, the House Telecommunications Committee.

As those donations were being made, Brosnahan and Clayborne were leading negotiations between AT&T and opponents of the legislation to get it passed. Their efforts included a March 15 letter in the Chicago Sun-Times, signed by both men and laying out the case for increased competition in the cable TV market.

"The General Assembly needs to act now," warned the letter, "before Illinois consumers are left behind and are forced to needlessly continue digging deeper into their pockets just to keep the TV on."

It was the same argument AT&T lobbyists were making in Springfield at the time.

Brosnahan said he had voted against legislation in the past that was being pursued by the company but chose to support the latest bill because of his concern about the lack of competition in the cable industry.

"I look at the issues as they come up," said Brosnahan. "I thought it was a great idea to bring competition to the market."

He noted that there were compromise provisions in the final bill that AT&T hadn't wanted, including consumer protection safeguards and requirements that the company serve low-income as well as high-income areas.

The bill ultimately saw 39 legislators sign on as co-sponsors. The newspaper's analysis found that 36 of those co-sponsors had received donations within the past few years from AT&T or its corporate predecessor, SBC. Many of those donations came this year or late last year, as the AT&T lobbying effort was under way on the cable television bill.

Illinois is one of a handful of states that impose no campaign contribution limits on political donors, a distinction that reform groups have been trying for years to change. There was an effort this year to institute campaign contribution limits such as those imposed at the federal level, but it hasn't gained any traction in the Legislature, which would essentially have to vote to diminish its members' own campaign receipts.

AT&T spokesman Rob Biederman noted that all the company's donations were "legal and publicly reported."

"We have 20,000 employees in Illinois and customers across the state," said Biederman. "(We) support leaders … who support economic growth and job creation."

The legislation is part of a nationwide bid by AT&T to get into the television business, something it's already done in states such as Michigan and Indiana and is set to do in Missouri.

There, Gov. Matt Blunt signed a similar bill into law in April, and AT&T quickly announced it was spending $335 million over the next three years to upgrade its fiber-optic network in preparation for offering statewide television service.

The move is made possible by technology called "Internet Protocol Television," or IPTV, which delivers television systems over phone-and-computer networks instead of dedicated television cable lines. AT&T hasn't said exactly what its immediate plans are for Illinois, but company officials have said they intend to invest heavily in the coming months in their infrastructure in the state.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich hasn't said whether he will sign the bill, but there hasn't been any indication of opposition to it from the administration.

The legislation is SB678.

kmcdermott@post-dispatch.com | 217-782-4912
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