Public Interest, Consumer Advocates Underscore Faith in Clinton Telecom Priorities

Several advocates pointed to the sphere of advisers to the Clinton campaign. One public interest advocate told us nobody in the telecom world may be closer to the Clintons than Philip Verveer, senior counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, and Melanne Verveer, his wife, ex-chief of staff to Hillary Clinton during the Bill Clinton administration and now executive director of Georgetown University’s Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. Phillip and Bill were college classmates and friends afterward, and all have remained close, creating the possibility of close continuity between the Wheeler FCC and a possible forthcoming FCC under Clinton, the advocate said. Philip Verveer was U.S. coordinator for international telecom policy from 2009 to 2013, in the Justice Department as an antitrust official and a partner at Willkie Farr.

Philip, Melanne and their daughter, Alexa, a senior lobbyist for Discovery Communications, each donated the maximum of $2,700 to Clinton this election cycle. Center for Responsive Politics records show Philip and Melanne have donated to Hillary regularly for well over a decade, starting in 1999, and to Bill starting in 1991.

“Clinton's two major advisers on telecom at the moment are Alec Ross and Ben Scott,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. “Both of whom came to the State Department to work for Secretary [of State] Clinton after working extensively in the public interest community. I think that while Clinton is certainly going to look for people with private sector experience as well as public sector experience, it's a little premature to start worrying that Clinton will throw away her public interest input in favor of industry.”

Industry Connections

Phillip Dampier, a progressive telecom policy blogger for Stop the Cap, questioned Clinton’s industry ties in a June 27 blog post, a day before the release of her campaign’s tech agenda and focusing on the Clinton endorsement from AT&T Senior Executive Vice President Jim Cicconi, a Republican. “In May 2013, [Verizon] paid Hillary a $225,000 honorarium in return for a speech (the text has not been disclosed) to Verizon executives,” Dampier said, noting also the many donations from Verizon officials this presidential cycle. “The Clinton Foundation also benefited from Verizon contributions ranging from $100,000-250,000.” Clinton also has received donations this cycle from officials at Dish Network, Comcast, NCTA Deputy General Counsel Diane Burstein, Vice President Lisa Schoenthaler and Senior Vice President Rick Chessen, Telecommunications Industry Association Senior Vice President James Reid, CTIA General Counsel Tom Power, MPAA CEO Chris Dodd and RIAA CEO Cary Sherman. Dampier reviewed her agenda Monday, calling it "aspirational, bureaucratic and often vague."

Dampier speculated that a forthcoming Hillary Clinton administration could yield the rise of centrist Democrats similar to the Bill Clinton administration. “Many of those former regulators are now lobbyists for the telecom industry,” he said. “Or Hillary could move closer to [President Barack] Obama’s surprisingly tough pro-consumer policies on broadband issues and keep Thomas Wheeler at the helm of the FCC for a few more years.” He mentioned the Clintons’ friendship with Harold Ford Jr., a former Democratic House lawmaker from Tennessee who’s now honorary co-chair of the industry-funded Broadband for America. “Broadband for America supports deregulation, opposes Net Neutrality, and essentially shills for its corporate sponsors,” Dampier wrote. “Rep. Ford would likely oppose Net Neutrality and continue support for near-total deregulation.” Broadband for America didn’t comment.

Other public interest advocates pushed back against such fears. Clinton “offered some positive, pro-consumer, initiatives in her technology agenda,” said Debra Berlyn, who chairs the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee, presides over Consumer Policy Solutions and is a board member of the National Consumer League. She was “most pleased with the focus on closing the digital divide providing households with access to affordable broadband, moving to next-generation wireless [of 5G], and protecting consumer online privacy and security, and cybersecurity,” she said, expressing interest in reviewing any possible agenda from Trump.

“Hillary Clinton has stood with CWA members and pledges her commitment to making life better for working families,” the Communications Workers of America said Monday in an endorsement, formally pivoting its support from Democratic contender Bernie Sanders, a senator representing Vermont. “She’s walked with us on the Verizon picket line. She supports the call to get big money out of politics. She is committed to ending special treatment for Wall Street and the 1 percent.”

Little Anxiety

Clinton’s advisers now run the spectrum “from centrist to progressive,” said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, seeing as notable Clinton’s endorsement of the strong net neutrality rules of the Wheeler FCC and appealing to the progressive wing of the party within her agenda. “I think that sentiment is likely to dominate.” He also pointed to individuals in the Clinton campaign sphere as Ben Scott, the former State official, and Blair Levin, nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who helped develop the National Broadband Plan under then-FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Schwartzman criticized reading too much into industry officials’ contributions, saying they may reflect a broader universe of political leanings. CTIA’s Power, as a former Obama administration official, may prefer a Clinton presidency “personally even if that might not be the best thing for CTIA,” he said. AT&T’s Cicconi, similarly, “is personally appalled” by Trump and “he’s not endorsing Hillary Clinton because it’s good for AT&T,” Schwartzman said.

“Honestly I have no knowledge about who’s contributed to her campaign,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told us, unconcerned about industry ties and donations and declining comment generally. “Except for myself. I have contributed to her campaign. Or I shouldn’t say that -- my wife has.”

“Trying to read the tea leaves on the basis of individual contributions is a dubious game,” said New America Open Technology Institute policy counsel Josh Stager, pointing to a Comcast executive vice president: “Just look at David Cohen, who famously raised a lot of money for President Obama. The president even joked about how many times he'd been to Cohen's house for fundraisers. But his administration still reclassified Comcast as a Title II carrier [under net neutrality rules] and blocked the Time Warner Cable merger. Those were huge losses for Comcast. It's important to monitor industry ties with every candidate, but the predictive value of campaign fundraising can be overstated.” Stager lauded Clinton’s comprehensive agenda and commitment to net neutrality and competition after its release.

“We’re always concerned about the influence that industries can develop -- or flat out buy -- over the lawmakers and agencies supposed to regulate them," Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood emailed us. "The concern holds for candidates, office holders, and commissioners from both major parties, because companies are so good about playing both sides of the aisle with their hiring, their lobbying and their campaign contributions too. That said, Chairman Wheeler proved that you can’t always predict future actions just by looking at an appointee’s resume. And speaking of the current FCC, if we do indeed see another Democratic administration next year, the current Commission has set precedent in many areas that would be difficult or impossible for the next chair to walk back. Unenthusiastic implementation and backsliding are always a risk, and we’ll be on the watch for that. But any Democratic successor to [the] current FCC majority would have a hard time turning her back on Net Neutrality, Lifeline, and the other gains that Wheeler, [Mignon] Clyburn, and [Jessica] Rosenworcel have secured."

Feld hopes “the example of Tom Wheeler will remind people about being too quick to judge,” he said, mentioning his past disagreement with Dampier about Wheeler at his appointment. “While I don't think we should ever give anyone a free pass, it's equally important to keep an open mind. The bottom line is that Clinton's history at the State Department on issues such as Internet freedom, engagement of civil society, and Internet governance show that she makes independent judgments. But those independent judgments are obviously informed by the quality of the advocacy on the issues. Whether Clinton or Trump wins in November, it will be vitally important for the public interest community to push for the right appointments and the right policies.”