April 28, 2006

Illinois Rep. Rush's Million Dollar Conflict

As reported by Lynn Sweet Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief - 4/25/2006

WASHINGTON -- An Englewood community center founded by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), a key player on telecommunications legislation, received a $1million grant from the charitable arm of SBC/AT&T, one of the nation's largest phone companies.

The chief of a congressional watchdog group says Rush's ongoing association with the Rebirth of Englewood Community Development Corporation and his role in shaping telecommunications law as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee is a conflict of interest. Using charitable giving as a backdoor way to curry favor with lawmakers is coming under increasing scrutiny,figuring in controversies associated with former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), who was forced to temporarily step aside as the ranking Democrat on the Ethics panel.

On Wednesday, the energy and commerce panel on which Rush sits is set to vote on a controversial rewrite of telecommunications law co-sponsored by Rush and backed by major phone companies eager to compete with cable television companies.

"It is a clear conflict of interest for Rep. Rush to weigh in on this bill," said Sheila Krumholz, the acting executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which researches money in politics. "People can disagree about where to draw the line on contributions and abstaining from votes, but $1 million is definitely over that line."

See Dslreports.com for more on this topic.

Posted by wbia at 14:19:01 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

April 07, 2006

COMPTEL Challenges Verizon Forbearance Petition in DC Circuit

WASHINGTON, DC --March 29, 2006 -- On March 19, 2006, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin Martin unilaterally granted Verizon sweeping relief from federal and state regulation of Verizon's high-capacity data services by failing to act on its petition for forbearance. COMPTEL today filed a petition for review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging that FCC action.

The following statement may be attributed to Earl Comstock, COMPTEL's President and CEO:

"When the chairman of a federal agency is able to abdicate his responsibility to protect the public interest, and instead chooses to advance the private financial interests of a single giant corporation, it is time for the courts to step in and protect the public. The FCC's default grant of forbearance makes Verizon the only telecommunications company in the entire country that is not subject to regulatory oversight. COMPTEL believes that the statutory provision that allowed this situation to occur is an unconstitutional delegation by the Congress to an unelected federal official."

Posted by wbia at 08:20:52 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

April 06, 2006

Freedom 2 Connect Podcast

"That's Entertainment": a conversation with Cynthia de Lorenzi, Washington Bureau for ISP Advocacy (WBIA), at F2C 2006.

"Entertainment." That's how Cynthia de Lorenzi, former CEO of Patriot.net (a recently acquired ISP) framed the fight between Cable and the Teleco's. She explained that while the folks at the F2C conference understand what's at stake, it's not making much sense to most people. We caught up with her during a break in the action to ask her to expand on this notion, that its all really a struggle over entertainment, and if we could frame things in these terms, we might be better able to reach the average joe.

Listen to Daniell Krawczyk's interview with Cynthia De Lorenzi.

Posted by wbia at 01:33:17 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |