Common Cause Blog

The Cable TV Industry: Hardwiring Influence in New York State

Common Cause New York this morning released a new report titled, "The Cable TV Industry: Hardwiring Influence." The report brings together New York State lobbying and campaign finance data for the first time to demonstrate how the cable television industry has used its financial resources to fight for industry self-interest at the expense of New York cable subscribers, who Common Cause deems to be the ultimate "Loser" in the report.

Hardwiring Influence (and its additional background) documents the veritable "army" of lobbyists employed by the cable TV industry, which paid more than $24 million for these lobbying efforts in recent years, as well as $4.3 million in campaign contributions made to politicians, their political parties, and party slush funds.

Giving Across the Aisle

From the Politico:

For these Republicans and others like them, it's the cost of doing business with a Congress run by Democrats. An analysis of 100 top Republican lobbyists shows that about a dozen of them -- including former GOP members, staffers and White House officials -- have contributed to Democrats in the year and a half since they won control of both the House and the Senate.

Double givers, as we call them, are perhaps the best example of how money talks in Washington. You may spend a career in Congress throwing bombs at the other side, but once you become a lobbyist and need to deliver for your clients, all that is history.

A Dangerous Precedent

While opponents to public financing argue that there is no problem with lobbying, and that money given to politicians is not meant to influence congressional action, they may find that argument harder to make after the recent actions of one of nation's top 10 corporate donors to politicians.

Ameriquest Shows How Big Money in Politics Hurts Real People-- By Kicking Them Out of Their House

When I head home for the holidays, my relatives sometimes have a hard time grasping what I do as a "reformer" and how that impacts their daily lives. This year, I'll point them to a recent story in the Seattle Times that describes how 96-year old Francis Taylor is about to lose her home of more than 40 years when banks foreclose on loans she took out from the now defunct lender Ameriquest.

After inventing the "sub-prime" mortgage industry, the collapse of which now threatens to throw the country into a recession, Ameriquest has gone into bankruptcy and sold its remnents to Citifinancial. The company settled a lawsuit with 49 states recently for $325 million out of claims of predatory lending. They also recently paid a fine for violating the do not call list. I guess greed knows no bounds, certainly not privacy in your own home (that they plan to take away from you.)

The sad thing is, things didn't have to work out this way. Years ago, consumer advocates saw the crisis coming and urged state governments to put stricter regulations in place. Today's Sacramento Bee reminds us how the California legislature failed to enact reforms back in 2001. Ameriquest and others said this would make it harder for first time homeowners to buy their first abode, but it turns out that almost all of Ameriquest's loans went to existing homeowners -- many of whom the company probably knew could not make the payments and would end up losing their houses.

Subprime Mortgage Interests Spends Millions to Fight Reform of Industry

When we released our first report in May about how much money subprime mortgage interests spent on lobbying and campaign contributions to fight consumer protections in Congress from 1999 to 2006, the word "subprime" was just starting to find its way in newspaper headlines. Since then, the media has been saturated with stories of how foreclosure rates continue to reach record levels, how investment firms from here to China that have holdings in the subprime market are getting burned, and how the effects of the subprime meltdown are leaking into other sectors of the economy. So we thought now would be a good time to revisit the issue.

We analyzed newly available data for the same top subprime lenders and trade associations from the first report to see what they've been doing. Here's what we found: despite facing serious financial struggles since the mortgage collapse, the biggest subprime lenders have spent $32 million in the first half of 2007 on lobbying and campaign donations to fight overwhelming public pressure on Congress to enact reforms for the subprime market.

To read the report, click here.

FCC needs to stop tipping off corporate lobbyists!

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) yesterday released a report that accuses the FCC of leaking information to corporate interests before that info is made public.

When will this end?!

Besides this being a clear violation of agency rules, they are helping those who do not need helping! The telecom firms that the FCC regulates are the ones who have lobbyists swarming all over Washington. The public interest groups like Common Cause and our allies don't have access to this information until it is officially made public. But isn't the FCC supposed to be serving the PUBLIC's interest?

The report was conducted at the request of Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and focused on the FCC process as the agency sets important rules for the telecommunications industry.

Bush Signs Ethics Bill

Good news to wrap up this week: President Bush today signed into law the most important ethics and lobby reform package since Watergate. Hurrah!

Common Cause activists made all the difference in this fight. You generated tens of thousands of letters, emails and phone calls to the Hill demanding reform. And today, you got it. We can't thank you enough for all you do for our democracy.

Listen to what some Congressional leaders had to say:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: "Reformers made this happen! ...I want to thank the reform groups for their relentless persistence and leadership, their willingness to work together to help pound this out."

Senator Barack Obama: "This bill was passed in large part due to the activists who have been on the front lines of reform and I want to thank them for their outstanding work."

Congressman Chris Van Hollen: "I want to give a very special thank you to the public interest community."

Congrats to everyone who worked so hard on this new law.