Back in May, still early in the primary season, the Washington Post published a story citing Senator Hillary Clinton as the big fundraising winner among telecom employees. Framing that particular article was Net Neutrality issue. According to the article, Hillary and Obama had recently co-sponsored legislation that would have enforced net neutrality. The author thought it strange that democrats would be out raising Republicans with such visible and divisive issues standing between telecos and Democrats. With all signs indicating Democrats will be back in the White House in '08, employees of telecommunications corporations (among others) continue to be shift their fundraising dollars towards the presumptive victors.

Telecom Leaders Open Wallets for Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton's fundraising machine is working its magic among employees of the nation's biggest telecommunications companies, despite her support for an industry-unfriendly legislative initiative.

...

Overall, employees of the nation's telecommunications and cable television companies contributed $119,250 to Clinton's campaign. McCain took in $79,300, an analysis of Federal Election Commission records showed.

...

Of $59,300 in contributions from Verizon employees, $20,700 went to Clinton, $13,350 went to Obama and $11,750 went to McCain.

(note: some totals above includes cash from corporations not implicated by the warrantless surveillance program)

In light of the dismal GOP presidential field and impressive Bush approval ratings, it seems corporate fundraising has started funneling into the pockets of Democrats. Glenn Greenwald recently recommended a spectacular article on this topic at Wired relating directly to the Telecom Immunity FISA "compromise" bill, Democratic Lawmaker Pushing Immunity Is Newly Flush With Telco Cash (Ryan Singel). In the spirit of these wonderful articles, I it would be helpful to tabulate 2008 political contributions by employees from the three Telecom corporations implicated by the Bush Administration's warrantless surveillance program: Verizon, AT&T , Bellsouth (now part of AT&T) and SBC (now also AT&T).

First, I should mention a few things about how I added things up. For each candidate, I've included the total donor count, total dollars contributed, number of donors contributing $2,000+ and number of donors contributing $500+. The number of donors contributing over $500 (you'll see) includes the group contributing over 2,000. I didn't include the other trailing democratic candidates, because there weren't enough separate donations to make it worth my time to keep track. With that said, off we go:

Employer: AT&T

$89,321 was given by people who identified their employer as "AT&T".

$28,891 to Republicans $60,430 to Democrats

• Hillary Clinton (17 donors)

  $27,838

  >1999 7

  >499 11

• Barack Obama (29 donors)

  $28,668

  >1999 4

  >499 16

• John Edwards (5 donors)

  $2874

  >1999 0

  >499 1

--

Employer: SBC/Southwestern Bell Company (AT&T merger)

$9,100 was given by people who identified their employer as "SBC".

$0 to Republicans $9,100 to Democrats

• Hillary Clinton (2 donors)

  $5,000

  >1999 1

  >499 1

• Barack Obama (1 donors)

  $2,100

  >1999 1

  >499 1

• John Edwards (1 donors)

  $2,000

  >1999 1

  >499 1

--

Employer: SBC Communications (variation of above)

$1,687 was given by people who identified their employer as "SBC Communications".

$0 to Republicans $1,687 to Democrats

• Hillary Clinton (3 donors)

  $1,687

  >1999 0

  >499 2

--

Employer: BellSouth (merged with AT&T effective 12/29/06)

$2,740 was given by people who identified their employer as "BellSouth".

$2,240 to Republicans $500 to Democrats

• Hillary Clinton (1 donors)

  $500

  >1999 0

  >499 1

--

Employer: Cingular (AT&T)

$250 was given by people who identified their employer as "Cingular".

$0 to Republicans $250 to Democrats

• John Edwards (1 donors)

  $250

  >1999 0

  >499 0

--

Employer: AT&T Wireless

No Contributions Found

****

Employer: Verizon

$71,459 was given by people who identified their employer as "Verizon".

$29,331 to Republicans $42,128 to Democrats

• Hillary Clinton (6 donors)

  $23,250

  >1999 5

  >499 6

• Barack Obama (13 donors)

  $14,228

  >1999 4

  >499 9

• John Edwards (3 donors)

  $3,400

  >1999 1

  >499 2

--

Employer: Verizon Wireless (variation of above)

$8,385 was given by people who identified their employer as "Verizon Wireless".

$4,559 to Republicans $3,826 to Democrats

• Hillary Clinton (2 donors)

  $1,000

  >1999 0

  >499 2

• Barack Obama (3 donors)

  $2,826

  >1999 1

  >499 1

--

Employer: Verizon Communications

$12,450 was given by people who identified their employer as "Verizon Communications".

$8,000 to Republicans $4,450 to Democrats

• Hillary Clinton (4 donors)

  $3,200

  >1999 1

  >499 1

• Barack Obama (2 donors)

  $1,250

  >1999 0

  >499 1

--

Employer: MCI (Verizon acquisition)

$250 was given by people who identified their employer as "Mci".

$0 to Republicans $250 to Democrats

• Barack Obama (1 donors)

  $250

  >1999 0

  >499 0

So there we have it. I have the final total at $62,475 (35 donors) for Senator Clinton, $48,072 (49 donors) for Senator Obama and $8,524 (10 donors) for Senator Edwards. There's a good chance I've missed some individuals, but I've done the best I could to cover the various names each corporation might contain. I used the ridiculously useful Huffington Post FundRace 2008 search tool.

The Washington Post's surprise at the fundraising numbers is a little unfounded. Democrats have always been treated extremely well by employees of telecom corporations, showered with their fair share of fundraising cash. From 1990-2006, Telephone Utilities companies (AT&T) have contributed about 44% of $107m to Democrats. Telecom Service (AT&T & Verizon) corporations actually donated slightly more to democrats, with 52% of $59m falling on the left.

Honestly, these numbers look pretty meaningless besides the tens and tens of millions our candidates have raised. Still, I think the breakdown of the fundraising data tells an interesting story. As expected, Clinton is the favorite of the ranking members of these corporations. She's currently the leading democratic candidate (by a wide margin, if you believe the polls), most likely bet for the WH in '08, and hasn't joined the Edwards/Obama stand against contributions from corporate lobbyists. Does this mean Clinton is a corrupt, a corporate shill? Not necessarily, it just indicates ranking (like AT&T's VP Federal Relations, Peter Jacoby) employees in these telecom companies clearly believe a Clinton campaign would be a more favorable outcome, despite her stance on issues like Net Neutrality.

I really believe this could be a defining issue for the presidential campaigns. If Clinton supports this legislation (or conveniently misses the vote, resulting from "campaign conflicts"), Obama and Edwards could use her position to sharply criticize Clinton's corporate ties, calling the vote an indication that the corporate lobbyist money has some influence over her policy decisions. Combined with Clinton's recent DC based, corporate sponsored "Rural Americans for Hillary" fundraiser, there definitely an unsettling trend emerging from the Clinton campaign.

We haven't heard from Edwards yet on the compromise bill, but I suspect we'll hear some sort of opposition statement shortly. Obama has already the Telecom Amnesty, but it's not yet clear to what degree, if any, Obama will support Dodd's efforts to hold and eventually filibuster the bill. Things are certainly getting interesting.