saz
07-29-2008, 12:45 PM
Who’s Paying for the Conventions? Corporate Sponsors Pour Millions into Party Coffers
Less than two weeks after Congress granted retroactive immunity to telecoms involved in the Bush spy program, it’s been learned AT&T will be emblazoned on every delegate’s bag at the Democratic National Convention. Like Comcast, Motorola, Coca-Cola, Google and a host of other corporate sponsors, the telecom giant has donated over a million dollars to the DNC in return for prominent display space and access to elected officials. But none of these companies have fully disclosed their projected contributions to the convention, according to a new report from the Campaign Finance Institute. Amy Goodman speaks with the group’s associate director for policy, Steve Weissman, and constitutional law attorney and political and legal blogger Glenn Greenwald.
starts at 10:18 (http://www.archive.org/details/dn2008-0722_vid)
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, there was a bag that was designed by the convention and reported by a blogger (http://www.demconwatchblog.com/) who writes about the convention in Denver that was really just illustrative, more than anything else, of everything that Mr. Weissman was discussing. I mean, it has the Democratic National Committee convention logo on it, and then right underneath, very large, it has an AT&T logo. And that’s the bag that will be given to every delegate and member of the media who attends the convention.
And the reason why that’s just so symbolically interesting is because the Democrats in Congress just last month gave an extraordinary gift of telecom amnesty to most of the entire telecom industry, including AT&T and Comcast, in order to protect them from lawsuits and in a bill that was written by the telecom industry and their lobbyists. So, to turn around and see such a sort of tawdry expression of the very close relationship between the telecom industry and the Democrats, who had just given them an extraordinary gift, was, I thought, quite remarkable.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel like the Democrats—well, the Republicans, of course, wanted this. President Bush was pushing very hard for the immunity. This is retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies involved with the spy scandal. But this was just a few weeks ago, less than two weeks ago, that this was pushed through by the Democrats. And of course, the big story, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, who had said he would be involved in a filibuster against such granting of retroactive immunity, actually turned around and voted for it, saying that the bill was a compromise.
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, that’s exactly right. I mean, President Bush and the White House have been demanding amnesty for all sorts of lawbreakers involved in torture and rendition and spying programs for many years. But none of that would have happened had the Democratic leadership in the Congress, led by Jay Rockefeller in the Senate and Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, the Democratic House Majority Leader in the House, not gotten together and negotiated a bill that immunized the entire telecom industry for any crimes that they have committed or any violations of the privacy rights of their customers for allowing government spying on their customers without warrants.
And as I indicated, Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller, when they were drafting the bill, were actually negotiating directly with representatives of the telecom industry. They had hired an extraordinarily bipartisan cast of lobbyists, former Clinton officials like Jamie Gorelick and others, who was number two in the Justice Department at the Clinton administration. And they negotiated directly with the telecoms, and the telecoms would give them proposals for how they wanted the amnesty to read.
And in the meantime, privacy groups, like Electronic Frontier Foundation, and civil liberties groups, like the ACLU, and other citizen groups were frozen out of the process completely. The Democrats in Congress literally turned over the process to AT&T, Comcast and others, in order to write this extraordinary law to protect them from consequences for having broken our laws. And so, to read about how at the same time they’re funding to the tune of many, many millions of dollars the Democratic National Convention is just a very potent illustration of this sleazy process that drives our lawmaking process.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s interesting. A recent analysis showed Democratic Congress members who changed their vote to support the immunizing of telecom companies in the FISA bill have on average received thousands more from phone companies than those Democrats who voted consistently against immunity. Ninety-four Democrats voted against immunity as recently as March but changed their votes to support it. And according to MAPLight.org (http://www.maplight.org/), these Democrats have received on average $8,000 in telecom contributions over the last three years. The 116 Democrats who remained opposed to immunity received on average $5,000.
GLENN GREENWALD: Right. There are so many levels of the way in which that telecom money and corporate money floods the Congress. I mean, you have direct campaign contributions. And that study that you just described is incredibly insightful about the process. And right before Jay Rockefeller in the Senate became the most vocal advocate for telecom amnesty, huge amounts of telecom money poured into his campaign coffers. And in fact Wired magazine did a study showing that, prior to that, he received virtually no money, and right as telecom amnesty became a big issue, all sorts of telecom executives and companies poured money into his coffers, had campaign parties for him, created this connection, this social and financial connection. And he then became their greatest advocate.
On top of that, you have millions and millions and millions of dollars, as Mr. Weissman described, in lobbying fees from these telecom industries. And then you have the fact that they fund so many of the party apparatus that there’s almost very little separation between the party leadership and the telecom industry. And you see that in terms of how the Democratic Congress behave. I mean, a majority of them voted against telecom amnesty in the House, but far more than enough of them in the House and in the Senate voted in favor of it. And as you say, the ones who did have very strong connections to the telecom industry, in terms of contributions and lobbying.
Less than two weeks after Congress granted retroactive immunity to telecoms involved in the Bush spy program, it’s been learned AT&T will be emblazoned on every delegate’s bag at the Democratic National Convention. Like Comcast, Motorola, Coca-Cola, Google and a host of other corporate sponsors, the telecom giant has donated over a million dollars to the DNC in return for prominent display space and access to elected officials. But none of these companies have fully disclosed their projected contributions to the convention, according to a new report from the Campaign Finance Institute. Amy Goodman speaks with the group’s associate director for policy, Steve Weissman, and constitutional law attorney and political and legal blogger Glenn Greenwald.
starts at 10:18 (http://www.archive.org/details/dn2008-0722_vid)
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, there was a bag that was designed by the convention and reported by a blogger (http://www.demconwatchblog.com/) who writes about the convention in Denver that was really just illustrative, more than anything else, of everything that Mr. Weissman was discussing. I mean, it has the Democratic National Committee convention logo on it, and then right underneath, very large, it has an AT&T logo. And that’s the bag that will be given to every delegate and member of the media who attends the convention.
And the reason why that’s just so symbolically interesting is because the Democrats in Congress just last month gave an extraordinary gift of telecom amnesty to most of the entire telecom industry, including AT&T and Comcast, in order to protect them from lawsuits and in a bill that was written by the telecom industry and their lobbyists. So, to turn around and see such a sort of tawdry expression of the very close relationship between the telecom industry and the Democrats, who had just given them an extraordinary gift, was, I thought, quite remarkable.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel like the Democrats—well, the Republicans, of course, wanted this. President Bush was pushing very hard for the immunity. This is retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies involved with the spy scandal. But this was just a few weeks ago, less than two weeks ago, that this was pushed through by the Democrats. And of course, the big story, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, who had said he would be involved in a filibuster against such granting of retroactive immunity, actually turned around and voted for it, saying that the bill was a compromise.
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, that’s exactly right. I mean, President Bush and the White House have been demanding amnesty for all sorts of lawbreakers involved in torture and rendition and spying programs for many years. But none of that would have happened had the Democratic leadership in the Congress, led by Jay Rockefeller in the Senate and Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, the Democratic House Majority Leader in the House, not gotten together and negotiated a bill that immunized the entire telecom industry for any crimes that they have committed or any violations of the privacy rights of their customers for allowing government spying on their customers without warrants.
And as I indicated, Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller, when they were drafting the bill, were actually negotiating directly with representatives of the telecom industry. They had hired an extraordinarily bipartisan cast of lobbyists, former Clinton officials like Jamie Gorelick and others, who was number two in the Justice Department at the Clinton administration. And they negotiated directly with the telecoms, and the telecoms would give them proposals for how they wanted the amnesty to read.
And in the meantime, privacy groups, like Electronic Frontier Foundation, and civil liberties groups, like the ACLU, and other citizen groups were frozen out of the process completely. The Democrats in Congress literally turned over the process to AT&T, Comcast and others, in order to write this extraordinary law to protect them from consequences for having broken our laws. And so, to read about how at the same time they’re funding to the tune of many, many millions of dollars the Democratic National Convention is just a very potent illustration of this sleazy process that drives our lawmaking process.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s interesting. A recent analysis showed Democratic Congress members who changed their vote to support the immunizing of telecom companies in the FISA bill have on average received thousands more from phone companies than those Democrats who voted consistently against immunity. Ninety-four Democrats voted against immunity as recently as March but changed their votes to support it. And according to MAPLight.org (http://www.maplight.org/), these Democrats have received on average $8,000 in telecom contributions over the last three years. The 116 Democrats who remained opposed to immunity received on average $5,000.
GLENN GREENWALD: Right. There are so many levels of the way in which that telecom money and corporate money floods the Congress. I mean, you have direct campaign contributions. And that study that you just described is incredibly insightful about the process. And right before Jay Rockefeller in the Senate became the most vocal advocate for telecom amnesty, huge amounts of telecom money poured into his campaign coffers. And in fact Wired magazine did a study showing that, prior to that, he received virtually no money, and right as telecom amnesty became a big issue, all sorts of telecom executives and companies poured money into his coffers, had campaign parties for him, created this connection, this social and financial connection. And he then became their greatest advocate.
On top of that, you have millions and millions and millions of dollars, as Mr. Weissman described, in lobbying fees from these telecom industries. And then you have the fact that they fund so many of the party apparatus that there’s almost very little separation between the party leadership and the telecom industry. And you see that in terms of how the Democratic Congress behave. I mean, a majority of them voted against telecom amnesty in the House, but far more than enough of them in the House and in the Senate voted in favor of it. And as you say, the ones who did have very strong connections to the telecom industry, in terms of contributions and lobbying.