<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<h1>LA Times reports today:</h1>
"AT&T is a major player in Sacramento. Since 2005, it has donated
more than $5 million to politicians and parties..." and during that
time "
The firm has spent nearly $30 million on lobbying the Legislature ..."<br>
<br>
<br>
_____________<br>
<br>
<h1>AT & T employees urged to back Nuñez measure</h1>
<div class="storysubhead"
style="margin: 0pt 0pt 15px ! important; color: rgb(51, 51, 51) ! important;">The
bid to change term limits is backed by Nuñez, whose law let the company
into the cable TV market.</div>
<div class="storybyline"
style="margin: 0pt 0pt 15px ! important; color: rgb(153, 153, 153) ! important;">By
Nancy Vogel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer <br>
February 2, 2008 </div>
<div class="storybody">SACRAMENTO -- The president of AT&T
California is urging employees
to support Proposition 93, the term limits measure on Tuesday's ballot
championed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, whose 2006 law allowing
the telecommunications company into the lucrative cable TV market could
be worth billions of dollars.<br>
<br>
In a letter e-mailed to 40,000 employees this week, President Ken
McNeely wrote: "I believe that Prop. 93, which AT&T has supported,
strikes a good balance between term limits and enabling legislators to
develop more expertise for California."<br>
<br>
Proposition 93, with a campaign financed
heavily by public employee unions, legislators and corporations
including AT&T, would allow Nuñez and many other lawmakers to run
for office again this year rather than be forced out.<br>
<br>
Nuñez, a Los Angeles Democrat, wrote the law that permits AT&T
and other phone companies to compete against cable operators for pay
television customers.<br>
<br>
His 2006 bill won bipartisan support after a hard-fought lobbying
campaign that pitted AT&T and Verizon against cable companies.<br>
<br>
After the bill passed the Legislature, AT&T helped pay for
full-page newspaper ads praising the speaker's "leadership and vision."<br>
<br>
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the legislation into law in September
2006.<br>
<br>
Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for
Corporate Governance in Newark, Del., said corporate executives
occasionally urge employees to vote a certain way on matters of direct
importance to a company.<br>
<br>
AT&T executives "must have felt that there's some connection"
between the term limits measure and AT&T's success, he said.<br>
<br>
"I've always thought that it's frankly better for business to stay
out of its employees' involvement in the political process," Elson said.<br>
<br>
AT&T spokesman James Peterson said in an e-mail statement Friday
that the company "has always encouraged our employees to actively
participate in the civic process."<br>
<br>
He noted that McNeely's communique referred workers to the California
secretary of state's website for more information.<br>
<br>
Proposition 93 would shorten overall terms in the Legislature from
14 to 12 years but allow legislators to serve all of those years in the
same house. It also would allow 34 legislators who otherwise must exit
later this year to stay until they have served a total of 12 years in
their current house.<br>
<br>
Nuñez and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland)
spearheaded last year's effort to move California's presidential
primary election from June to February. If Proposition 93 passes, they
and other legislators who would have been termed out will be able to
run for reelection on the June ballot.<br>
<br>
No on Prop. 93 campaign spokesman Kevin Spillane called the AT&T
letter "more evidence of how committed the major special interests with
business before the Legislature are to supporting Prop. 93."<br>
<br>
He said it contradicts proponents' assertion that by freeing
legislators from having to constantly seek a different office,
Proposition 93 would strengthen the hand of legislators in their
dealings with lobbyists.<br>
<br>
"In truth," said Spillane, "the special interests are supporting Prop.
93 to win favor with powerful incumbent politicians."<br>
<br>
The opposition campaign is funded largely by Republican Steve Poizner,
the state insurance commissioner; the state prison guards union; and a
national nonprofit term-limits group. Richard Stapler, spokesman for
the Yes on Prop. 93 campaign, said opponents "take a cynical view of
the process."<br>
<br>
"The other way to look at it is, if you're working with the Legislature
you want to be working with legislators who are experts in policy
issues," he said.<br>
<br>
"If you can gain more experience, you can craft better public policy,"
said Stapler, "and bad public policy affects every person and every
business in California."<br>
<br>
AT&T is a major player in Sacramento.<br>
<br>
Since 2005, it has donated more than $5 million to politicians and
parties, including $250,000 to the Yes on Prop. 93 campaign.<br>
<br>
The firm has spent nearly $30 million on lobbying the Legislature since
2005 and plays frequent host to legislators and staff at meals,
concerts and sports events. Each April for several years, AT&T has
paid the costs of the "Speaker's Cup," a lavish golf fundraiser at
Pebble Beach.<br>
<br>
<a href="mailto:nancy.vogel@latimes.com">nancy.vogel@latimes.com</a> </div>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- -- --
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression;
this right includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information
and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 (UN, 1948)
</pre>
</body>
</html>