Last Friday, two congressional committees held closed door discussions with 31 representatives from industry and activist groups to discuss writing a new broadband Internet policy, largely focused on whether and how to implement net neutrality rules, into the Telecommunications Act of 1996. While the meeting contained more proponents of net neutrality, opponents of implementing the policy hold a lop-sided advantage in lobbying spending and contributing to political campaigns.

In attendance were some of the major organizations on both sides of the debate. The biggest organizations in attendance in support of the legislation included Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com and two service providers breaking with their industry, DISH Network and Sprint. Opponents included AT&T, Verizon, National Cable & Telecommunications Association, Communications Workers of America and the US Telecom Association. A number of public interest and consumer groups were also present.

According to data obtained from the Center for Responsive Politics, net neutrality opponents represented at the meeting combined for $19.7 million in lobbying in the first quarter of 2010. Supporters, on the other hand, only combined for $4.7 million in first quarter lobbying expenses. (Organizations with undefined, or unidentifiable, positions combined for just under $1 million.)

The major campaign contributors opposed to net neutrality gave $6.9 million to political candidates from 2009-2010 while major contributors in support gave $2.2 million.

Both sides of the debate sent lobbyists with previous government experience into the closed-door meetings with the committees. Eight of the 31 organization representatives present at the meeting previously worked in Congress. Five of those eight previously worked for one of the two committees holding the meeting.

Lobbyists for net neutrality proponents had good connections to the lawmakers in the room. Google's Johanna Shelton previously worked on the House Committee on Energy & Commerce; Microsoft's Paula Boyd used to work for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation; Amazon.com sent lobbyist Emmett O'Keefe, a former staffer to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation member Sen. Byron Dorgan.

Two organizations in opposition sent lobbyists with similarly good connections: National Cable & Telecommunications Association sent James Assey, a former staffer on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and US Telecom Association sent Walter McCormick, another former staffer from the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

The meetings, held jointly by the House Committee on Energy & Commerce and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, are the result of years of efforts by Congress to pass net neutrality legislation and recent developments involving the Federal Communications Commission's attempts to impose net neutrality rules the industry.

Net neutrality rules would disallow broadband service providers from discriminating against users and content by preventing them from slowing access to certain users and charging money to acesss certain content.

The FCC attempted to impose these rules after Comcast slowed service to certain users using the BitTorrent file-sharing service. In April, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against the FCC, stating that they did not have the regulatory authority to stop Comcast from blocking or slowing certain users of their broadband service.

Broadband providers have largely opposed the implementation of net neutrality rules, while Internet companies have largely backed them.

The committees are scheduled to hold another talk this Friday. The list of organizations and their representatives, provided by Tech Daily Dose, can be found below:

AT&T, Tim McKone Amazon, Emmett O'Keefe CDT, David Sohn Cisco, Jeff Campbell CompTel, Jerry James Consumers Union (CU), Joel Kelsey CTIA, Jot Carpenter CWA, Debbie Goldman Dish, David Goodfriend Free Press, Derek Turner Free State Foundation, Randolph May Google, Johanna Shelton ITI, Dean Garfield ITIF, Rob Atkinson Level 3, John Ryan MAP, Andy Schwartzman Microsoft, Paula Boyd NARUC, Brian O'Hara NASUCA, Brenda Pennington NCTA, James Assey NTCA, Tom Wacker OIC, Markham Erickson PFF, Dan Horowitz Phoenix Center, Larry Spiwak Public Knowledge, Ernesto Falcon Qwest, Melissa Newman RCA, Tim Donovan Sprint, Bill Barloon TIA, Grant Seiffert US Telecom, Walter McCormick Verizon, Peter Davidson

As leaders in Congress announced a series of hearings this June to tackle huge telecommunications issues with a focus on the Internet, the top phone and cable organizations that control the majority of the access to the Internet have hired 276 former government officials to lobby both the Congress and the executive branch.

According to data obtained from lobbyist disclosure forms and the Center for Responsive Politics, seventy-two percent of the lobbyists hired by AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the US Telecom Association have previous government experience. These organizations combined to spend $20.6 million lobbying the federal government in the first quarter of 2010.

Eighteen of the 276 revolving door lobbyists are former members of Congress. These include the powerful former senators John Breaux and Trent Lott. The Breaux Lott Leadership Group reported spending $150,000 lobbying on behalf of AT&T in the first quarter of 2010.

Both Breaux and Lott served in the leadership of their respective parties while in the Senate with Lott serving as Majority Leader. Lott also served on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, the committee with jurisdiction over the telecommunications industry.

The eighteen former lawmakers include a heavy representation from the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, the House committee with telecommunications jurisdication. In 2010, the organizations hired former Energy & Commerce Committee members Jim Davis (AT&T), Jack Fields (Verizon), Ron Klink (Comcast), Chip Pickering (Comcast and National Cable and Television Association) and Al  Wynn (US Telecom Association).

The organizations are also hiring former lawmakers with previous clout in both the House and the Senate. Former Sen. Don Nickles, hired to lobby for Comcast, was the Republican Majority Whip from 1996 to 2001. Comcast also hired the former House Majority Whip William H. Gray.

Aside from Breaux and Lott, AT&T has hired two other lawmakers with strong resumes, former House Republican Conference Chair J.C. Watts and longtime California Democrat Vic Fazio.

The top telecom organizations are also hiring a number of lobbyists who previously worked on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation or the House Committee on Energy & Commerce. Fourteen lobbyists used to work on the House committee and thirteen previously worked at the Senate committee. In addition, the six organizations employ 26 former staffers of current members of the House committee and 22 former staffers of current members of the Senate committee.

These staffers include the former chief of staff, Lane Bailey, and deputy chief of staff, Patrick Robertson, to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. Robertson lobbies for Comcast and Bailey lobbies for the National Cable and Television Association.

The former counsel to Sen. John Kerry, the number two Democrat on the committee, Barry LaSala, is registered to lobby for Verizon.

Comcast and Time Warner Cable lead the way in hiring former government officials as lobbyists. Ninety percent of lobbyists hired by Time Warner Cable previously worked in government. Two Time Warner lobbyists served as congressmen and two others served as staffers to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation.

In first quarter lobbyists disclosure filings for 2010, eighty-eight percent of all lobbyists hired by Comcast had previous experience in government. While this percentage is slightly lower than Time Warner's, Comcast hired more than twice as many lobbyists with former government experience as Time Warner did—82 to 38. This includes five former members of Congress and four Energy & Commerce Committee staffers. Comcast, as it seeks government approval of its purchase of NBC Universal, has also hired six former officials from the Department of Justice.

Broadband regulation has been a major issue over the past few years as many Democrats, including President Obama, have called for the institution of net neutrality rules to govern broadband transmission. Net neutrality regulations would prevent broadband service providers from blocking or slowing transmission to certain sites, services and users.

In April, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was rebuffed by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after trying to stop Comcast from slowing broadband access to users using the BitTorrent file-sharing service. The court ruled that the FCC did not have sufficient regulatory authority to require Comcast to provide equal access to all sites and services online.

In the wake of the court's decision, four committee and subcommittee chairmen announced a series of meetings with industry players to discuss a rewrite of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The meetings will focus on the changes in telecommunications brought on by the revolution in Internet technologies over the past fifteen years. Much of that time is expected to be spent on the regulation of broadband routes.

A group of 74 Democratic lawmakers recently sent a letter to FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski asking that the FCC not institute net neutrality rules without specific instruction from Congress. The 74 Democrats were comprised of a mix of Blue Dog Democrats, New Dems and members of both the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC).

At least, six of the letter signatorees—Reps. Joe Baca, Allen Boyd, Corrine Brown, Baron Hill, Eddie Bernice Johnson and Ciro Rodriquez—have former staffers lobbying for the top telecom organizations.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from the past week:

Late last Friday, National Public Radio ran a piece by Andrea Seabrook about the Obama administration’s "Open Government Initiative," a three-part process to craft recommendations on open government. Seabrook quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, saying the government should make it a priority to get the most important information up sooner. “And, in my mind, you got - priority data is the data that affects the public trust in its institutions. So, you know, personal financial disclosures, lobbying reports - there are many lobbying reports that are found in the Justice Department that have never seen the light of day. That is to say, they're not online - that being the definition of light of day in the 21st century.”

The second phase of the White House’s Open Government Initiative was a “brainstorming” session where the administration invited the public to submit ideas on how to achieve and sustain an unprecedented level of openness in government. The administration then encouraged participants to vote up or down on the ideas. They received 900 submissions and 33,000 votes on various ideas. House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (Ohio) submission to require Congress to honor a 72-hour public review period before voting on major spending bills ended up as one of the most popular, receiving nearly 1,000 votes. Roll Call (subscription required) and Federal Computer Week quote from Boehner’s statement noting Sunlight’s support for the 72-hour rule.

As normal, major press outlets depended on data from the Center for Responsive Politics to expose the power and influence of big money in Washington. The Wall Street Journal reported that in the first three months of 2009, the financial industry spent $27.6 million on lobbying and made $286,000 in campaign contributions to Congressional lawmakers. One industry goal was to get Congress to amend certain financial rules. So far, The Journal reported, they’ve succeeded in loosening one key accounting regulation and are working to get ride of it altogether. The Washington Post used CRP data to show the growing influence of tech titans Google, Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon. The same article mentions that the Center for Digital Democracy wrote to the White House protesting the Obama administration’s appointment of Google’s top lobbyist to the position of deputy technology officer. "We believe no special-interest connected person should assume a position of vital importance to the country's future," they wrote.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s directive to enforce a new level of disclosure for official expenditures from the offices of House lawmakers and to post the documents online as soon as possible generated a number of mentions of Sunlight’s support for the move. National Journal’s “Tech Daily Dose” blog links to a blog post written by John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director about the matter. They mention that Sunlight called for online disclosure of the expense records in December 2008 and again last week. T.W. Farnam, writing at The Wall Street Journal’s “Washington Wire” blog, noted Sunlight’s support for expenditure disclosure. He also quotes John saying “public accountability for member expenses comes with online access, which is a big change from an underground office.” CQ Politics’ Bart Jansen, in writing about Pelosi’s directive, quoted from John’s post, “Speaker Pelosi’s move should be interpreted as a recognition that public information — even potentially embarrassing information about how members spend public funds — should be truly accessible to the general public, which means online.”

In a post titled, “Visualizing how a dirty Congresscritter turned campaign contributions into earmarks,” Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow highlights and links to a blog post written by Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight’s senior writer, and a graphic created by Kerry Mitchell, sunlight’s creative director, that illustrates U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky’s (Indiana) connection to a lobbying firm, the PMA Group, which represented many of the recipients of federal money earmarked by the congressman. Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor at The Washington Examiner, wrote in a blog post, “If this graphic doesn't persuade critics that earmarks are the key to the culture of corruption that dominates Congress, I don't know what else will.”

The Associated Press’ Andrew Miga wrote about how the spouses of congressional lawmakers and other politically-connected figures are coming under increasing scrutiny, especially those in high-profile, high-paying jobs. Miga quotes Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, saying conflicts can arise when both spouses work. "High-powered people are often likely to be married to other high-powered people."

Katharine Q. Seelye, writing at The New York Times’ “The Lede” blog, reported on the Supreme Court’s plans to redesign and update their Web site. She quotes from and links to a blog post written by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight's policy counsel, and a mock redesign of the Court's site created by Ali Felski, Sunlight Labs' senior designer. Fast Company's Cliff Kuang highlighted Ali's mockup and links to Daniel's post. Kuang also links to the mockups for USA.gov, FEC.gov, EPA.gov and Data.gov Sunlight Labs has created.

Thanks and see you next Friday!

Mike

Sen. McCain, can you hear me now? Sen. Stevens pays for his own lunch like a big boy. And Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah continues his annual tradition of earmarking funds for his biggest campaign contributors. That and more in today's news:

The Atlantic's Joshua Green takes a look at the Verizon and AT&T cell phone tower plans for Sen. John McCain's ranch and determines that the defenses offered by the companies and the McCains are simply not sufficient. The excuse for the now-derailed permanent installation of cell phone towers at the McCain ranch in Sedona was that Cindy McCain had made an independent request for cell service. Of course, the rapid and costly effort undertaken by the two companies had nothing to do with her husband's public role as a United States Senator and possible presidential candidate. Except that Verizon referred to the Sedona ranch, not as Cindy McCain's ranch, but as "John McCain’s cabin." Green writes, "So while Cindy McCain may indeed have requested the tower over the web like an ordinary millionaire rancher with spotty phone reception, Verizon was well aware that she was anything but that."

Sen. Ted Stevens emphatically denied any wrongdoing as he took the stand yesterday in a federal corruption trial in which the senator is accused of filing false statements on his personal financial disclosure reports. Sen. Stevens stated outright that, "I don't allow people to buy my lunch or buy my dinner; wherever I am, I pay my bills." Prosecutors have sought to show that the Alaska oil company VECO, headed by Stevens friend Bill Allen, paid for renovations to Stevens' house in Girdwood, Alaska and Stevens and Allen colluded to hide the expenses by filing false disclosures. Stevens' examination continues today.

Utah Rep. Rob Bishop has an annual tradition: earmark hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in earmarks to ES3, a company operating at Hill Air Force Base and then attend an August fundraiser thrown by ES3 after the earmarks are secured. This year, Rep. Bishop secured $800,000 in earmarks for ES3 whose employees have generously donated $22,000 in August of this year to Bishop's reelection bid. Over the past five years, Rep. Bishop has secured $9.8 million for ES3.

Sunlight's Nancy Watzman has the final disclosures for the party convention committees over at Party Time. Democrats raised $60,966,482 for their convention, while Republicans raised $51,229,299 for theirs.

Open Secrets now has lobbyist campaign contributions available in their lobbying database. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 required the disclosure of lobbyist campaign contributions for the first time.

Open Congress' Donny Shaw continues his excellent series of posts comparing the legislative achievements of John McCain and Barack Obama by using actual data rather than stump speeches and press releases. Today, Donny is looking at the two candidates' voting records. Hurray, factual data comparisons!

And for something slightly different, here's a great article from Reason explaining, by way of Cindy McCain's beer distributor fortune, how the government aids and subsidizes certain parts of the beer, wine, and liquor industry, in the process raising the price of that frothy cold one waiting for you at that happy hour around the corner.

Senators get their own cell phone towers installed, don't pay for it. Rep. Tim Mahoney continues to sink in yet another installment in "When Sleeping Around Goes Wrong." Rep. Rick Renzi tries to get the 35 criminal counts against him dismissed. This is today's news:

The Washington Post released an excellent investigative piece showing that Verizon and AT&T were both working to install cell phone towers to provide service for Sen. John McCain's Sedona, AZ ranch beginning last year, at a time when McCain's presidential hopes seemed dim. Sen. McCain sits on the Senate Commerce Committee and the installation of free cell phone towers by corporations under the oversight of that same committee certainly counts as a conflict of interest. Also troubling is the ability of the McCain's to hide this seeming in-kind contribution from their personal financial disclosures because it was ostensibly made at the request of Sen. McCain's wife, Cindy. The Senator and his wife keep their finances separate and thus he does not have to fully disclose her financial activities on his annual personal financial disclosure. While the two telecommunications giants eventually abandonded the idea of permanently installing towers, they both provide portable towers at no-cost to the Senator's ranch.

Rep. Rick Renzi, under indictment on 35 counts related to a land swap, accused the government of taping conversations with other members of Congress and bringing the corruption indictment against him for political reasons. Renzi also filed for a dismissal of the charges against him on the grounds that they violate the Speech and Debate Clause. Renzi is under indictment for allegedly using his position in Congress to push through a land swap that eventually netted him $700,000. Apparently, the congressman abides by the motto of the William Jefferson school of congressional corruption, "If you do it in an official capacity, they can't investigate." I don't think that the Speech and Debate Clause was enacted as a way to make congressional offices into corruption safe rooms.

In worsening news for Rep. Tim Mahoney, an FBI investigation into his affairs is expanding to include the second affair with a high level county official, which Mahoney admitted to today, to determine whether he steered federal emergency funds to her county. An aide close to his campaign also announced that Rep. Mahoney may not seek reelection. If this is the case, all replacements should quickly be vetted to make sure that they don't carry on the Foley-Mahoney curse.