Glenn Greenwald’s latest column illustrates how telecom companies are attempting to buy amnesty from Congress through a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign. He is dead on by calling the effort "a perfect microcosm for how our government institutions work." 

By accessing the Center for Responsive Politics’ lobbying database, Greenwald reports that in the first three months of this year, three telecom companies (AT&T, Verizon, Comcast) have spent a combined $13 million lobbying Congress.  If they maintain this pace throughout this year (and what’s to stop them?), the three companies will spend $50 million. Nonprofit groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are leading the fight against amnesty.  Greenwald links to a post by Kurt Opsahl, EFF senior staff attorney, on his organization’s Deeplinks Blog.  Opsahl makes the point that "AT&T’s spending for three months on lobbying alone is significantly more than the entire EFF budget for a whole year, from attorneys to sysadmins, pencils to bandwidth."Wanna place any bets on the outcome of this one?

Greenwald highlights some of the firms AT&T hired to carry their water on Capitol Hill, including Charlie Black’s  BKSH & Associates, former Sens. John Breaux and Trent Lott’s Breaux Lott Leadership Group, and the C2 Group, a lobbying firm filled with former Democratic lawmakers associated with the Blue Dogs. "This, of course, is what all leads to having these corporations literally write our nation’s laws and be able to get so close to having such an extraordinary and transparently corrupt gift — retroactive immunity for lawbreaking — granted to them," Greenwald wrote. "To describe the process is to illustrate its oozing, banana-republic-like corruption, but that’s generally how our laws are written."  Greenwald is correct to note that it’s quite remarkable that the little "Davids" fighting against this collection of K Street "Goliaths" have prevented amnesty so far.  Evidenced by their spending, the telecoms aren’t giving up.

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It looks like congressional Republicans have seen MAPLight.org - the insanely useful money-for-votes tracker - and they like the idea. (Also see: National Association of Home Builders.) That idea being that money equals votes and votes equal money and therefore interests that they vote in favor of should kick back some campaign cash to reward their votes:

With the House Democrats’ refusal to grant retroactive immunity to phone companies — stalling the rewrite of the warrantless wiretapping program — GOP leadership aides are grumbling that their party isn’t getting more political money from the telecommunications industry.

Like most corporate interests with a heavy stake in Congressional action, the major phone companies significantly boosted their contributions to Democrats last year after the party surged back into the majority.

…

“When those numbers are made evident, it causes some angst,” one Republican lobbyist said. “Leadership are told by staff, who look through this. There’s communication back and forth” between GOP leadership and downtown.

“There’s no question that from time to time staff, and maybe some Members, say to fellow travelers: ‘Are you giving us some air cover? Are you helping us help you?’”

This situation highlights a potential difficulty in aligning campaign contributions for votes and, in return, votes for campaign contributions. There are two views by which one could look at this:

1) From the congressional Republican standpoint, it looks like they are getting stiffed in a tough election year by telecom companies even though they are voting to support the bottom line of those same companies. The Republicans expect that their support, by casting votes, should lead to campaign contributions. Conclusion: Voting a certain way gets you money.

2) From the telecom company perspective, Republicans are going to vote to support their interests no matter what, while Democrats are more likely to oppose them. Some of these Democrats could be swayed with cash in their coffers. So the money obviously goes to the members you need to influece, i.e., the Democrats. Conclusion: Money buys you votes.

While these two views usually line up (as depicted in the complicated diagram on the left), this instance shows that the money-for-votes, votes-for-money calculus does not always add up. Tough situation for congressional Republicans. I guess leaking a story with anonymous quotes is the other way to get campaign contributions in Washington.

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Ryan Singel of the Threat Level blog discovers a curious phenomenon: Between 2001 and 2006, high level executives of AT&T and Verizon contributed hardly any money at all to the campaigns of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Starting in March 2007, they apparently discovered a real affinity for him, writing checks totaling some $48,500 to the West Virginia senator’s campaign committee. Perhaps that’s because Rockefeller had come around to their views:

Both companies are being sued for allegedly turning over billions of calling records to the government, while AT&T is also accused of letting the National Security Agency wiretap phone calls and its internet backbone. A federal judge in California allowed the suits regarding the eavesdropping to continue despite the government’s attempt to have the suits thrown out on the grounds they will endanger national security. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed that decision in August. The judges seemed reluctant to toss the cases, but have yet to issue a ruling.

On Thursday evening, the Rockefeller-led Senate Intelligence Committee is marking up a bill to re-amend the nation’s spy laws. While the text of the bill has not yet been released, the bill reportedly includes a way for the telecoms to escape the litigation against them.

The legal immunity for telecoms was included in the bill. Ellen Miller had previously noted the industry’s clout with Congress–”the telecom industry has spent $24 million lobbying Congress so far this year, and almost $52 million lobbying in 2006. In the two-year 2006 cycle, the latest cycle on record, the industry gave over $6.4 million dollars in political contributions to the House and Senate.” Always worth remembering that those millions end up in the coffers of particular politicians at particular times. By the way, all the numbers cited here and above come from the invaluable OpenSecrets from the Center for Responsive Politics–the ultimate scorecard for following politics.

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