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AT&T, Verizon Break Out The Campaign Contribution Checkbooks Early, Sending $ to the Newly-Elected

Phillip Dampier December 4, 2014 AT&T, Comcast/Xfinity, Competition, Net Neutrality, Public Policy & Gov't, Verizon 4 Comments
Big Telecom is already trying to buy incoming members of Congress with lavish campaign contributions.

Big Telecom is already trying to buy incoming members of Congress with lavish campaign contributions.

Before constituents have a chance to make an impression on Capitol Hill’s incoming freshmen class, AT&T and Verizon have rushed significant campaign contributions to more than two dozen newly elected members of Congress.

Politico reports AT&T has cut checks to 31 new members of the House and Senate, Verizon sent 28 checks, and Comcast donated to 22 winners in the fall elections. Most of the money went to incoming Republicans who will control both the House and Senate starting in January.

All three companies are seeking allies in the fight against Net Neutrality and for a wholesale rewriting of the Communications Act, the nation’s most important telecom-related legislation.

Congressional observers predict revisiting the Communications Act would be a lobbyist bonanza, with potentially billions flowing into congressional coffers to win further industry deregulation. The last major overhaul in 1996 transformed broadcasting, allowing a handful of corporations to own the majority of radio and television stations and allowing large phone and cable companies to govern themselves with respect to broadband and competition. Cable and broadband prices soared as a result, while the number of competitors dropped due to industry consolidation.

The telecom companies are well ahead of technology players like Microsoft and Google, that have collectively sent contributions to fewer than a half-dozen incoming members and are barely active in Washington in comparison to the biggest phone and cable companies.

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fjfdybvfgj
fjfdybvfgj
9 years ago

This settles im officially leaving the USA in a year or 2 then. I’m not staying here for telecom HELL. Im going to miss google fiber but at least I’ll get away from this Hellhole of a country. The only way to fix this is to heavily regulate broadband under Title II with Strong Net Neutrality rules and Split these Corporations apart. We the people need to start protesting against any deregulation and we need to Vote these bribed and corrupt politicians out of office. We can impeach them and I say we Impeach every last one of them. We… Read more »

brandon425
brandon425
9 years ago
Reply to  fjfdybvfgj

@fjfdybvfgj There is no reason to leave the country the whole world is like this. We as a country and as humans should not just wuss out when things get bad (no disrespect intended) we should fight for what we want but nobody seems to have the heart to fight for what they believe in this generation seems week compared to the past. George Washington said that there should be a revolt against the government every 7 years to stop this from happening. We do have support though, there was 4 million people who went against net neutrality with the… Read more »

fjfdybvfgj
fjfdybvfgj
9 years ago
Reply to  brandon425

I hear ya about the no wussing out part. I’m just tired of having no freakin support. I believe what we need is a Strong Leader to rise up and lead the charge. Once we have that we would need support from some tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix (they would probably be on board faster than the others so including them) in order to have the resources Necessary for a large Campaign for Net Neutrality and Title II. While doing this we would need to get the Media On our side and have them constantly report on any… Read more »

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