Michigan Lawmaker Flees Twitter After Reports Highlight She Helped AT&T Push Anti-Competition Broadband Law
from the the-best-laws-money-can-buy dept
Last week we noted how Freshman Michigan Representative Michele Hoitenga has been pushing a broadband competition-killing bill she clearly neither wrote nor understands. The industry-backed bill, HB 5099 (pdf), would ban Michigan towns and cities from using taxpayer funds to build or operate community broadband networks, and would hamstring these communities' abilities to strike public/private partnerships. The bill is just the latest example of broadband industry protectionist laws ISPs ghost write, then shovel unobstructed through the corrupt state legislative process.
ISPs want to have their cake and to eat it too; they don't want to upgrade or deploy broadband into rural or lower income areas, but they don't want others to either. Why? Because these communities might highlight how there's creative, collaborative alternatives to the duopoly status quo we all despise. And they certainly don't want added outside pressure disrupting the good thing (read: duopoly regulatory capture resulting in no competition and higher rates) they've enjoyed for the better part of a generation.
While companies like AT&T could deter towns and cities from looking for creative alternatives by offering better, cheaper service, it's much less expensive to throw money at lawmakers who, with the help of groups like ALEC, craft and pass laws protecting their regional mono/duopolies. All while pretending that their only real motivation is to protect the taxpayer, of course.
And while this process has played out in dozens of states repeatedly over the last fifteen years (more than twenty states have let ISPs write similar state laws), Hoitenga's lack of experience provided a closer look at the often-grotesque process. As we noted last week, Hoitenga doesn't appear to even remotely understand how the broadband industry works, from her belief that Michigan residents had 37 different ISPs to choose from, to her argument that letting giant ISPs dictate what locals can do in their own communities somehow...helps the little guy.
As the press began to politely highlight how Hoitenga should probably actually understand the industry she's legislating and the bill she's supporting, the lawmaker refused to comment -- and instead chose to flee Twitter:
The Michigan lawmaker who is trying to ban municipal broadband doesn't seem to enjoy Twitter so much anymore https://t.co/M3CqqXQFps pic.twitter.com/Jr7s1odfhk
— Jorb S. Pumpkins (@jbrodkin) October 21, 2017
For added protection, she blocked my account specifically from following her whatsoever:
That should certainly fix the problem, right? While it's unclear which giant ISP wrote the bill Hoitenga couldn't bother to understand, AT&T has been particularly active on this front over the last decade and is the most likely culprit. And based on a quick look at campaign financing and lobbying disclosures, Hoitenga's fealty to the status quo appears to have come relatively cheap for the multi-billion dollar media, television and telecom conglomerate:
Campaign finance records reviewed by IBT show that two of her largest campaign contributors are AT&T Michigan and the Telecommunications Association of Michigan (TAM): AT&T gave her campaign $1,500 while TAM provided her with $3,500 — large amounts for a first term state representative. The Michigan Cable Telecommunications Association — a separate entity from TAM — gave Hoitenga’s campaign $1,000.
According to state lobbying records reviewed by IBT, Hoitenga met and dined with TAM lobbyists during the first half of the year. Michigan’s lobbying disclosures are filed every six months, so it is currently unknown if TAM lobbyists has met with Hoitenga since June. The $142.82 spent to take Hoitenga out for a meal appears to be the only food and beverage expense TAM has disclosed in conjunction with its lobbying since 2001 , as far back as online lobbying records go.
Again, why bother to offer better and cheaper broadband service when you can quite literally buy protectionist state law for a few thousand dollars and some duck a l'orange?
Update: While Hoitenga has since restored public access to her Twitter account, I remain blocked. She has subsequently tried to claim on Facebook that the accounts she blocked were issuing threats against her and her family. For the record I asked Hoitenga one, entirely civil question.
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Filed Under: competition, michele hoitenga, michigan, muni broadband, press
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High ROI
It's more cost-effective to shell out $100k to bunch of politicians than to spend $10m to improve your services when you can charge the same price in both scenarios.
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Bah! Humbug!
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The root and core is the political party. You probably do not even know how terrible it really is.
Our system of government is rigged in favor of the voters... you just can't get them to understand or see that. Not even in the least! Humans have a natural predilection for grouping up, folks are "stronger" in groups after all, but when you join one, you give your voice away. Out of fear of going it alone you will refuse to give up your position in this group, and that is when they KNOW they have you.
Now that a politician knows that since you belong to no group, your voice is weak, so why should they listen to you? Be they D or R, their group demands money first.
John Oliver gives a "small" glimpse of how much the party OWNS your politicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk
George Washington has it right about political parties.
Additionally, everyone's whining about first past the post causing this is puerile ignorance. Ignore them, yes its not the best but also often used as a scapegoat. The overt focus on who is president foments this exact problem. If people would instead focus on their Representatives and Senators instead, you would find a lot more tolerance for more than just 2 parties which would at least further dilute their power.
The best way to cause a divide in any nation, is to let it's entire population vote on a single figurehead like a President, Prime Minister, or King.
If we returned voting for President Back to its original state, you would find people paying a LOT more attention to where it belongs... House and Congress, instead of the President where it does not belong except in times of war!
We made a huge mistake when we changed how our presidents were voted on! But that was what the parties wanted... more power, consolidated and invested into an individual, which will only ruin liberty!
We did this to ourselves! Everyone refusing to understand that IS THE PROBLEM! Like AA if you can't admit you have a problem, you won't be fixing it!
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Kill business subsidies
Say "Hell no!" to free enterprise-killing government-subsidies!
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People are just getting confused about who they are!
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Re: Kill business subsidies
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I wonder if having your twitter restricted to the public is against the law or something.
seems kinda sketchy to me.
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Someone in the Ars comments pointed out that Hoitenga understands so little about the subject, that she retweeted someone who was proving her claims wrong.
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Typo
ISPs want to eat their cake and have it too;
Please try to get it right from now on. Thanks.
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It's a neat little thing that lets politicians pick their voters, and pick voters who they know will loyally elect a blue or red politician no matter what.
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Why do they care? Perhaps they realize the result would be a better than what they provide and their existing customers would then want access also thus putting them out of "business".
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Techdirt minion is a fascist, plain and simple.
The "business model" that Techdirt advocates always have someone else paying for the product (infrastructure here), which is then used by grifters who put in no money or effort, like: Hollywood makes the movies, and Kim Dotcom profits; artists make music, and Napster profits.
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Re: Techdirt minion is a fascist, plain and simple.
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Re: Techdirt minion is a fascist, plain and simple.
The obvious take is that Hoitenga is for the state preventing LOCAL fascism, of cities subsidizing corporations. How can that be bad? -- It's what some above argue for!
>>> "ISPs want their cake and to eat it too; they don't want to upgrade or deploy broadband into low ROI areas, but they don't want others to either."
That's a problem which calls for better regulation of limiting profits and in exchange for the monopoly required to serve "low ROI areas". -- But minion's solution is WORSE than more of the same! Lurches over into overt fascism: subsidizing more "competition". And then those corporations will forever want subsidies.
One solution is to simply break up corporations especially monopolies after a period of time (I suggest 25 years). They don't have any "right" to exist, nor to continue, nor to become large: the results are always tyranny. -- Fascists will make themselves known here by continuing to support unlimited corporations, and as having "Rights".
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Re: Re: Techdirt minion is a fascist, plain and simple.
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http://www.michiganvotes.org/2017-HB-5099
"To prohibit local governments from using any federal, state, or local funds or loans to pay for the cost of providing high-speed internet service, but not prohibit a local from contracting with a private company to do so."
This is just lazy reporting. Come on, Techdirt, you're better than this.
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Michigan Lawmaker Flees Twitter After Reports Highlight She Helped AT&T Push Anti-Competition Broadband Law
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You are right, though, that the president doesn't matter nearly as much as our country seems to think he does. If you ask me, the biggest issue in our political system is gerrymandering; you can't forget that it's not 100% our fault when the system is -actively rigged- to create no-competition districts for certain politicians.
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You have it backwards
Government subsidies, targeted tax breaks, and public/private partnerships are precisely how protectionist cronyism works, regardless of who benefits from such protectionism.
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Fascist
I don't think it means what you think it means.
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Re: Michigan Lawmaker Flees Twitter After Reports Highlight She Helped AT&T Push Anti-Competition Broadband Law
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Can't take the heat
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Frankly, it's not the elected members of the House and Senate which are the main problem. It's the thousands of unfireable government union employees who really run the show. They decide who sees what and how reports will be skewed.
We turned government into a growth industry. With tenure...
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The flaw here is that we ARE in a time of war, and have been longer than I have been alive -- and I am 43 years old!
You know that big military spending authorization bill that comes up in Congress every four years, that has must-pass status? That's Congress declaring that our current state of emergency/war-time is ongoing and needs to continue for another four years.
If Congress ever fails to pass that before the deadline -- or chooses not to pass it at all -- then the war-time footing our military has been in since Vietnam will end, and our enlistment totals will revert to peace-time levels. We'll have to withdraw from a number of treaties too, since our peace-time military levels won't be adequate to meet our obligations under them.
But that ongoing state of emergency and war-time military footing is what gives our President such immense power, and makes that election such a big deal.
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Re: High ROI
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Whether a government uses its police powers to *protect* its crony by taxing the crony's competitors, or by selectively subsidizing the crony, makes no difference. (Let me remind you, a tariff, does not *prevent* any foreign company from importing and selling its goods.) It is still protectionism, as that term has been used for about a century.
The removal of such cronyism, e.g., by banning a government from engaging in it, is one form of market liberalization--consumers are no longer forced their government to provide (through taxes) for a political crony they don't prefer; and consumers are also no longer forced to pay more (because of tariffs) for the foreign goods they do prefer.
For the author to refer to banning government protection of any company as "protectionism", is to misuse the term as its exact opposite.
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Specific definitions are rarely helpful in politics. Nuance is key, and the devil is always in the details.
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Broadband by and for the community
... should probably be the #1 issue for most people. Unfortunately, local government ownership and development is probably not the answer anyway. Local government has proved to often be just as corrupt as the incumbent ISPs and their friends in state legislatures. What we really need are nonprofit consumer-owner cooperatives that have access to Internet POPs guaranteed by law. That's a tall order, of course, because to make it work you need to organize consumers at the local level and to have them engaged with an intensity and in numbers that haven't been seen since the days of the bucket brigades and New England town meetings. The situation isn't hopeless, but it is pretty bleak. Here in NC I think there was only one municipal ISP in operation, Greenlight in Wilson, before the legislature cut off further efforts with a law similar to the one discussed above. Greenlight has enjoyed a good reputation over the years, and shows how municipal broadband could be done right. But I'm not so sure it would work as well in cities where political machines still run the show.
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They are however allowed to outsource it to the private sector.
Techdirt seems to have it right.
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Re: Broadband by and for the community
It is quite possibe for a rural community to install their own fiber. They took a DIY approach to installing a 150 miles of fiber, in underground duct, so as to get high speed Internet to a rural area, including negotiating rights of way.
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What you or the author might reasonably say, is that you support legislation that helps the good guys and hurts the bad guys, leaving out the term "protectionism". Of course, you would then be no different than any protectionist, since everyone believes he is one of the good guys.
Again, just because some party you don't like, or a large corporation, or an incumbent, or a bad guy benefits from legislation does not make that legislation "protectionist". There were undoubtedly "evil" corporations that benefited from the Civil Rights Act, the abolition of slavery, and women's suffrage--that does not make those measures protectionist.
It is only protectionist if a government actively uses its police powers to selectively protect the crony party from competition. That means subsidizing the crony (forcefully transferring funds from competitors and consumers through taxes) or repressing the crony's competitors. Ending or banning selective subsidies or taxes can NEVER correctly be called "protectionism", since those measures are always and everywhere *anti*-protectionist.
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