Maine U.S. Senate Challenger Highlights Net Neutrality, Surveillance as Key Campaign Issues

The FCC “got it wrong” with its May net neutrality NPRM, Bellows recently told us in Washington, expressing interest in submitting comments to the agency. “My hope is that the FCC will reclassify Internet service providers as a public utility or that Congress will step in, as it really should have done several years ago.” She blasted industry’s influence on Congress, which she said should take the lead to protect net neutrality in a bipartisan way: “Perhaps the debate on Capitol Hill is very closely tied to corporate moneyed interests rather than the interests of constituents on the ground who are very concerned about future access to the Internet and what this could mean for innovation."

In the Senate, where Democrats currently have a 55-45 majority, 36 seats are in play this November. Bellows faces Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has won three terms in office. That Maine seat is one of 13 that the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report judges “safe” Republican for now. Rothenberg predicts Republicans will gain four to eight seats this year. They need six to get control of the chamber.

In his reelection campaign, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., has trumpeted net neutrality, also pressing for Title II reclassification consideration, and opposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable. Franken, chairman of the Judiciary Privacy Subcommittee and occupying what Rothenberg considers a safe Democratic seat, devotes a page of his campaign website to consumers, privacy and net neutrality and prominently cited Comcast/Time Warner Cable as a concern (http://bit.ly/1fFDfGo). Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., meanwhile, faces what many consider one of the toughest Democratic Senate races of the year. Pryor, whose campaign website touches little on telecom or media oversight issues, faces Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., in what Rothenberg judges a toss-up that leans Republican.

Scrambling for Donations

Pryor’s race has attracted among the most intense spending battles, and many of the industries Pryor oversees in his subcommittee have pitched in. He has raised around $7.78 million and Cotton $5.38 million. Pryor’s campaign received money from the American Cable Association, AT&T, CBS, CenturyLink, Charter Communications, Cisco, Comcast, the Competitive Carriers Association, Comptel, Cox Enterprises, Communications Workers of America, CTIA, DirecTV, Dish Network, Disney, Facebook, Google, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Level 3, Microsoft, Motorola Solutions, NAB, NCTA, Qualcomm, Raytheon, Sprint, Sony, T-Mobile, Time Warner Cable, tw telecom, USTelecom, Verizon, Viacom, Windstream, XO Communications and Yahoo. AT&T, Raytheon, Verizon and Windstream also gave to Cotton.

Communications Subcommittee members Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., contributed thousands to Pryor from their political action committee funds, as did other lawmakers. Booker and subcommittee member Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., also are campaigning for reelection to seats that Rothenberg deems safely Democratic, and subcommittee member Tim Scott, R-S.C., is running for a safe Republican seat. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, is a member of the subcommittee and is fighting in a race Rothenberg calls a toss-up, leaning Democratic, as is subcommittee member Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., in a race judged a toss-up leaning Republican. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., a prominent advocate on rural call completion issues and Commerce Committee member, is fighting for reelection in a race Rothenberg says is Republican favored. Franken, who has raised $21.25 million, has not received donations from Comcast or NCTA but has received money from net neutrality advocates such as Google and Level 3. Comcast and NCTA have also not given money to Republican Mike McFadden, Franken’s opponent, who raised $2.09 million.

Maine’s Bellows said she has collected more than $1 million in contributions, with a median donation of $7.50. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers donated $5,000. Collins has raised $5 million and had $3.88 million cash on hand as of May 21, her campaign said last month. Federal Election Commission filings show that Collins has received several thousand dollars from AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, FairPoint, Google, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, NAB, NCTA, Qualcomm and Verizon. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, endorsed Collins.

Campaigning on Comcast

Bellows directed Maine’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter for eight years and spearheaded last year’s charge for state legislation targeting warrantless cellphone location tracking (CD July 15 p7). She also helped craft a state resolution endorsing net neutrality. Bellows takes pride in crafting what she calls “unusual” bipartisan coalitions, and in the case of net neutrality, she and other resolution backers “really wanted to call in Congress to take action, to reclassify Internet service providers in a way that would strengthen FCC oversight and prohibit fast lanes and slow lanes, prohibit preferential pricing mechanisms that would really crowd out the smaller players on the Internet,” she said. She battled a “flood” of “several lobbyists in suits representing some of the telecoms who really sought to prohibit that resolution from moving forward."

Federal regulators should block Comcast/Time Warner Cable, Bellows said, dismissing “monopolies” as bad for entrepreneurship and democracy: “We are already seeing too much concentration of wealth and power here in Washington, and consumers are feeling powerless in the face of these mergers and in the face of rules that seem stacked against ordinary individuals.” The House passed a highly modified USA Freedom Act (HR-3361) in May to curb government surveillance, but Bellows has “grave concerns,” as do privacy advocates, that the legislation doesn’t go far enough now. Collins, an Intelligence Committee member, voted last fall in favor of S-1631, the FISA Improvements Act, widely considered a much milder piece of legislation that would have codified phone surveillance practices. Collins did not comment for this report.

"The substitution [of the USA Freedom Act bill text] happened in secret between the committee votes and the floor and suddenly what we saw was a watered-down piece of legislation that failed to put in place true checks and balances and contained loopholes that seem to allow ongoing bulk data collection by the NSA,” Bellows said of the House legislation. “There’s still hope certainly coming from the Senate side.” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who’s expected to take up the issue this month, should ensure the Senate legislation restores “some of the checks and balances” lost in the House, Bellows said.