08/24: Lobbyist Money Party: Comcast & AT&T Stuff Millions Into Lawmaker Pockets for Telecom Issues & Executive Pay “Reform”

Lobbyist Money Party: Comcast & AT&T Stuff Millions Into Lawmaker Pockets for Telecom Issues & Executive Pay “Reform”
by Phillip Dampier, Stop the Cap; August 24, 2009

In just the second quarter of 2009, Comcast doled out nearly $3.3 million dollars of their subscribers’ money lobbying elected officials on a myriad of issues, covering everything from executive compensation to sports channels to unionizing efforts.

Forbes reported last week the nation’s largest cable company has lobbied on:

* the Excessive Pay Capped Deduction Act of 2009, a bill that would stop tax deductions on excessive compensation given to any employee. Excessive pay is defined as any amount above 100 times the average employee’s compensation at the company;
* the Income Equity Act of 2009, which curbs executive pay by limiting tax deductions on pay greater than 25 times that of the lowest paid employee, or $500,000, whichever is greater;
* the Shareholder Bill of Rights Act of 2009, which gives shareholders the right to approve or reject executive compensation packages.  Shareholders have long been in contention with Comcast over the near $25 million annual salary paid to CEO Brian Roberts;
* the right to carry regional sports channels on terms favorable to the cable operator, both in terms of channel/package placement and pricing;
* the nation’s Broadband Stimulus program — how the funds would be allocated, on what terms, and for what types of projects;
* the issue of unionization activity at Comcast;
* limits on Comcast’s ability to increase ownership of additional cable-related assets and systems.

Meanwhile, Brian Dickerson, a columnist at the Detroit Free Press has also been noticing that AT&T, promising to bring competition to Comcast in cities like Detroit, came at the price of a trojan horse called “statewide franchising,” an issue we’ve covered at length on Stop the Cap!  [ more ]