Comcast Has Created Powerful Lobbyist Arsenal to Deal With Hill Antitrust Oversight
Comcast hired more lobbying firms in 2014 than it had in any of the previous 15 years, with many hires showcasing a deep understanding of Capitol Hill antitrust oversight. The cable operator has a history of bulking up with antitrust-focused industry lobbyists, often former Hill staffers who have gone through the revolving door from the public sector to the private, whenever an acquisition is pending approval. This type of hiring was evident both this past year with its proposed Time Warner Cable purchase and in 2010 when it was buying NBCUniversal. Some observers critical of the proposed acquisition said this is an especially intense lobbying ramp-up and a sign of how seriously Comcast takes Washington politics.
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The Justice Department and FCC must ultimately approve the still-pending deal, and the company has hired many people over the years from the commission (see 1412230027">1412230027). But lawmakers grilled Comcast and TWC executives at two oversight hearings this year, one before the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee in April and another, lasting more than four hours, before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee in May. Industry lobbyists widely agree that these public airings of opinion influence the process.
Major Comcast hires out of the nine new firms registered in 2014 include Seth Bloom, a Democrat who spent years as the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee general counsel; Holland & Knight lobbyist Paul Bock, a former Democratic Senate staffer with antitrust expertise and time as a Senate Judiciary counsel; Normandy Group lobbyist Louis Dupart, a former chief counsel for the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee; Joseph Gibson, an ex-Republican chief antitrust counsel for the House Judiciary Committee and former counsel at Justice’s Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs Antitrust Division; and Edolphus Towns, a House Democrat from New York until 2013 and a former House Oversight Committee and Congressional Black Caucus chairman.
Several of Comcast’s 2010 hires explicitly mentioned the NBCUniversal proposal in the lobbying forms, including that of Republican Carlyle Thorsen, an ex-deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs during the Bush administration and House Judiciary Committee counsel. Thorsen lobbied on behalf of Comcast in 2009 and 2010 as part of the American Continental Group and has continued to do so in 2010 through today under his Thorsen French Advocacy firm, receiving $80,000 a quarter for several years now. Bock also worked as a Comcast lobbyist during 2010 as part of the Capitol Hill Strategies firm.
“I can't quarrel with Comcast's decision to retain them,” said Allen Grunes, an antitrust lawyer with the Konkurrenz Group, citing his high opinion of certain former Hill staffers. “Former staffers are often employed as lobbyists in high-visibility mergers, and the Comcast/TWC deal is unquestionably one of those. What is somewhat unusual here is the sheer number of former antitrust staffers Comcast has retained. The number of consultants is extremely high and maybe unprecedented.”
Grunes testified about his serious concerns about the deal before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee in May and has assisted deal opponents. He spent more than 10 years at the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and now chairs the District of Columbia Bar Association’s Antitrust Committee. The Comcast hires suggest to Grunes “that Comcast knew going into the deal that it needed a lot of help navigating the merger through Washington,” he emailed us. “Actions speak louder than words, and the decision to bulk up so heavily on lobbying talent should be viewed in contrast to Comcast's statements early on that this was just a geographic extension merger that would broaden its footprint a bit but posed few (if any) competitive problems. Second, I have to wonder if the sheer number of hires may also have been an effort to keep some of these talented individuals from working for merger opponents. I guess you could say that from the outside it sure looks like Comcast wanted to corner the market on former Hill antitrust staffers!”
Comcast has spent $11.94 million lobbying in 2014, employing 126 lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Ex-Legislators
Comcast, like Google and other companies in the media, telecom and Internet sector (see 1412230008">1412230008), also employs ex-members of Congress.
At Comcast, that includes about a half-dozen former members of Congress. More than 40 entities filed lobbying disclosure forms reporting work on Comcast’s behalf when Q3 forms were due in late October. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., a member of the Antitrust Subcommittee, has blasted Comcast for its heavyweight lobbying status throughout the year but declined to comment for this story. A Comcast spokeswoman also declined to comment, saying the cable operator typically does not discuss lobbying strategies.
“It's natural for Comcast to seek some expertise from the Hill, but their hiring has been rather aggressive,” said New America Foundation Open Technology Institute Policy Counsel Josh Stager, a former Democratic staffer who assisted Franken on Judiciary and focused on antitrust issues. “It's a strong signal that Comcast knows it has a P.R. problem, and that they're worried about the merger. Comcast is very focused on winning the political argument for the merger, but at the end of the day they need to win the legal argument.” Stager, whose current group opposes the deal, pointed to the oversight role of Congress and the pressure it can impose, but framed the acquisition proceeding as “ultimately a regulatory decision,” wherein “no amount of former Hill aides can hide the fact that this is a horizontal merger of two of the largest broadband providers and most hated companies in America.”
Comcast hired Bloom effective March 7, less than a month after the companies announced the acquisition deal. He has spoken publicly since then dismissing competition concerns and arguing, as Comcast does, that the deal is in the public interest. The company has strongly defended the proposed acquisition as good for consumers and argued that it will not impose any competitive harms. Bloom left the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee in January 2013, started his firm in March and has since been named to the advisory board of the American Antitrust Institute, which opposes Comcast/TWC.
“If we look at the hearings that have been held on Capitol Hill so far, and those are the people’s representatives at those hearings, it hasn’t attracted a great deal of opposition,” Bloom said of Comcast/TWC in July during a call hosted by Capitol Forum, speaking on behalf of himself. “I compare it to my own experience three years ago, when I was the general counsel of the Antitrust Subcommittee, of AT&T/T-Mobile, and at this stage of AT&T/T-Mobile, say three months after our hearing, there was a tremendous amount of opposition, sort of a groundswell. We had sent a letter to the Justice Department and FCC saying ‘block it.’ There’s been nothing like that.”