Branstad, Cuomo Broadband Proposals Highlight Deployment's Growth as Gubernatorial Campaign Issue

The Branstad and Cuomo plans take “different approaches to the same goal,” said Philip Brown, Connected Nation director-federal/state policy and broadband planning. Branstad’s Connect Every Acre legislative proposal would focus on improving rural broadband connectivity, particularly to agricultural areas, by improving deployment incentives and revising rules governing tower siting and broadband construction. The plan builds on proposals included in the Connect Every Iowan Act (HF-2472), which the Iowa General Assembly failed to pass during this year’s legislative session (see 1405020037). Cuomo has proposed a $1 billion plan to build a 6,000-mile fiber network in New York that would target upstate but would also reach other areas of the state. Cuomo plans to fund the network through $500 million in state funds and a matching amount from industry, Cuomo’s campaign said.

It’s “remarkable” that broadband deployment has become a campaign-worthy issue for Branstad, Cuomo and others, said Madery Bridge Associates Managing Director Bartlett Cleland, Institute for Policy Innovation resident scholar-tax and innovation policy. “It’s exciting because these technology issues are finally getting some of the attention that they deserve and resonating with politicians as being as important as they really are” by comparing them to other critical infrastructures. Campaigns’ increased interest in broadband policy could be an instance of an issue that’s the “next cool thing” that incumbents can latch onto, Cleland said. “They’re going to throw a bunch of ideas out there and I’m not sure that they always get the kind of critical analysis in a campaign setting that they might in other settings.”

Cuomo’s plan is “building on” broadband policies he championed during his first term, including the $25 million Connect New York Fund and broadband grants through the Empire State Development Corp., said New York State Broadband Program Office Director David Salway. Cuomo’s “been up front about wanting to encourage use of existing infrastructure and raise speeds,” and the $1 billion plan Cuomo has proposed during the campaign would seek to raise speeds to 100 Mbps, Salway said. The Broadband Program Office is still putting together many of the program details, but “it’s going to be based on the same principles” as Cuomo’s existing broadband policy, including “raising that speed tier again, working with the private sector on the adoption side and the availability side, and make sure we enact sound policies as well,” Salway said.

Branstad’s Connect Every Acre proposal stands a better chance of passing the Iowa General Assembly during the 2015 session simply because HF-2472 received a thorough debate during the 2014 session, Brown said. “Somewhere in the process, there were some issues introduced -- tower siting was one -- that became a little contentious,” Brown said. “But I also think the legislature just ran out of time. I think there was a desire on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers to pass the bill. I believe they were close to an agreement but there were some issues that they didn’t have time to hash through.” State legislators have “expressed a desire to pick that issue back up, and I would expect that we will see another version of that bill come back around in the next couple months,” Brown said. “No one wants to be against rural broadband.”

“I do think that you’re seeing more activity coming out of governors’ offices across the country on broadband policy,” Brown said. Those efforts don’t always make it into incumbents’ campaign platforms like they did for Branstad's and Cuomo’s campaigns, said Kirton McConkie lawyer Drew Clark, former executive director of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat who is in a tight fight for re-election, created the Illinois Gigabit Communities Challenge in 2012 as a matching fund program for qualifying proposals to deploy high-speed broadband in the state, and has had a history of encouraging broadband deployment since he was the state’s lieutenant governor. Quinn hasn’t pointed out broadband policy specifically as part of his re-election campaign, though his history of encouraging broadband deployment as a tool for economic development is well known, Clark said. “It isn’t the loudest issue when you get down to people voting, he said. “No one can deny that while those of us so enmeshed in broadband issues think it’s the most important thing, you always have to weigh it against” other issues a governor deals with, Clark said.

There’s no “one right way” to improve broadband access via state policy, Brown said. “Any broadband deployment plan at the state level depends on the amount of resources that can be applied to the effort and the parameters of the specific program.” If Branstad and Cuomo win re-election and begin converting their broadband proposals into policy, “I think it’s going to be a little harder case to make than just being able to get on the stump and make promises, though I think that’s always the case,” Cleland said. “There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be done out there” related to infrastructure, he said. “Broadband is important and necessary as we go forward. I just think it’s a question of how best to deploy that.”