With the political silly season upon us. The good folks over at ars-technica points us to The Open Secrets database. According to them, AT&T (T) easily qualifies as the top all-time donor to political campaigns. From 1990 through 2010, the carrier in its various ownership forms spent over $45,461,879 lobbying politicians, outspending the next two corporate lobbying contenders, the National Association of Realtors ($36,749,493) and Goldman Sachs ($32,660,452).
The money AT&T spends on lobbying politicians comes from every monthly customer bill paid for dial-tone, iPhone, U-Verse, DSL, etc. service. Ars-technica says that tracking where AT&T spends its money is easy. Figuring out the corporation’s politics is harder. OpenSecrets.org’s list of contributions shows that Republicans and Democrats share equally in AT&T’s gift-giving. Here are the leading recipients.
- Reid, Harry (D-NV) $30,000
- Crist, Charlie (I-FL) $22,100
- Blunt, Roy (R-MO) $11,500
- Guthrie, Steven Brett (R-KY) $11,500
- Jenkins, Lynn (R-KS) $11,500
In Michigan, the same mixed pattern continues. AT&T contributed equal amounts of cash to Democratic and Republican House members:
In 2008, for example, the carrier spent $14,736,518 on lobbying federal and state office-seekers. But the company spread the loot around in a fairly bipartisan manner. although during the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama was clearly the telco’s favorite. Obama (D-IL) received $264,411 from AT&T which surpassed his Republican challenger John McCain (R-AZ) who received $201,438 in AT&T money according to the article from Ars. Ars also noted that the carrier spent roughly the same amount on solid liberal Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) as it did on no-holds-barred libertarian Ron Paul (R-TX).
Lobbying ensure AT&T always has friends
Ars technica speculates that 
AT&T’s political donation strategy is to spread the money evenly so that no matter what happens, AT&T has friends on Capitol Hill and in the White House. The beneficiaries of the AT&T gift-giving however, tend to be fairly established candidates, mostly incumbents.
Undoubtedly AT&T expects help from the politicians it contributes to. In the second quarter of this year, the company spent over $3,086,786.27 for lobbying activities on Capitol Hill (PDF). Much of their time and energy went to a variety of telecom-related bills pending in the House or Senate. These included:
- HR 1319—The Informed P2P User Act. The bill would require P2P software providers to offer “clear and conspicuous” notice about the kinds of files the program can share. And no sneaky extra installs please, and the software can’t block consumers from deleting it. The proposed law has passed the House (PDF) and is awaiting committee action in the Senate.
- HR 3458—Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009. Edward Markey’s (D-MA) legislation would write the FCC’s Open Internet policy statement into the Communications Act, barring ISPs from being allowed to “block, interfere with, discriminate against, impair, or degrade” access to any lawful content from any lawful application or device. It is currently sitting in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (PDF), where it will doubtless stay until the Federal Communications Commission gives some sign about what it wants to do with its latest net neutrality proposals.
- HR 1019—The State Video Tax Fairness Act of 2009 would prohibit states from taxing pay-TV services, including IP video services like AT&T’s U-Verse. AT&T is probably in favor of this one.
- S 773—The Cybersecurity Act of 2009. The scariest part of this bill would have given the president the power to shut down the Internet in the event of a major cyber attack. That provision has been removed. Now the proposed law focuses on reorganizing the balkanized mess which is the federal government’s cybersecurity defense infrastructure.
RB-
Over the last two decades, AT&T has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on political races, lobbying, and philanthropic giving. And because the telco is careful to spread those resources over a broad political and social landscape, they win the carrier a degree of influence that goes way beyond the numerical figures cited by ars-technica.
Think about that as you vote on Tuesday.
Here is a link from the League of Women Voters to find your local polling place.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.