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Congressmen Who Lobbied FCC Against Net Neutrality & Received Payoff

Posted by Soulskill on from the only-your-best-interests-at-heart dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica published an article Friday highlighting the results from research conducted by a money-in-politics watchdog regarding the 28 congressmen who sent a combined total of three letters to the FCC protesting against re-classifying the internet as a public utility. These 28 members of the U.S. House of Representatives 'received, on average, $26,832 from the "cable & satellite TV production & distribution" sector over a two-year period ending in December. According to the data, that's 2.3 times more than the House average of $11,651.' That's average. Actual amounts that the 28 received over a two year period ranged from $109,250 (Greg Walden, R-OR) to $0 (Nick Rahall, D-WV). Look at the list yourselves, and find your representative to determine how much legitimacy can be attributed to their stated concerns for the public."

5 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. US is an oligarchy, not a democracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

  2. Let's reclassify Lobbying as Bribery and by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    make it illegal.

  3. Pretty much by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    one of the nasty parts of our history they don't teach is that large sections of our Constitution and the basis of our Representative government were designed to keep poor people from voting themselves the land that the wealthy had already claimed. It's all right there is books and documents from the time. There really wasn't any reason to hide it since if you were literate you were probably rich.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Pretty much by guises · · Score: 5, Informative

      According to Politifact, it's only mostly false. The candidate who spends the most money wins 80+% of the time (98% for the house in 2004), but exactly how often they win varies by election.

  4. Cultural Literacy by westlake · · Score: 5, Informative

    Large sections of our Constitution and the basis of our Representative government were designed to keep poor people from voting themselves the land that the wealthy had already claimed... There really wasn't any reason to hide it since if you were literate you were probably rich.

    A dangerous assumption to make.

    In 1776, one book, written in complex language, sold over 120,000 copies in Colonial America.

    First convert 120,000 into a fraction of the U.S. population in 1776: compared to the population at the time of 2.5 million, 120,000 is roughly 1 in 20, or 5%. Today's U.S. population is about 300 million --- of which 5% is 15 million.

    Fifteen million copies today! More surprisingly, Common Sense by Thomas Paine sold this equivalent in just three months. In its first year, it sold 500,000 copies, or 20% of the colonial population.

    Today's equivalent is 60 million copies.

    Were Colonial Americans More Literate than Americans Today?. ''Every Man Able to Read''

    In the late colonial and early federal era, disputes over land ownership centered on the opening of the western frontiers to settlement and the abolition of feudal tenures. The Last Patroon

    The Library of America's two volume "The Debate on the Constitution" can be found in most public libraries.

    For Americans this is Shakespeare, and more. Not only is it wonderful writing, it is wonderful thinking. -- Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio