Study: Stadium Debate Causes Rise In Lobbying Expenses
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Almost single-handedly, the battle over the West Side stadium sent lobbying expenses for the telecommunications industry soaring nationwide and made New York the state the industry spent the most on lobbying in 2004, according to a study released yesterday by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based watchdog group.
Of the $17.6 million telecommunications companies spent in New York in 2003 and 2004, the study said, $13.3 million was by Cablevision Systems Corporation, a cable and Internet service provider with more than 3 million cable subscribers in the New York area. Cablevision considered the stadium as competition to Madison Square Garden, which it owns. It spent almost all of its money in 2004.
“They wouldn’t have hired all these guys and spent all this money unless they really thought this was going to hurt them,” the author of the report, John Dunbar, said in a telephone interview. “And they won.”
A spokesman for Cablevision, Whit Clay, declined to comment.
Cablevision’s New York lobbying spending dwarfs that of other telecommunications companies, although New York did play a role in the fight over granting franchise licenses for phone companies to provide television service via fiber-optic cable, Mr. Dunbar said.
Verizon Communications, which wants to make it easier for phone companies to receive such licenses, spent $1.1 million in New York State. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, together with its local equivalents, spent $573,260.
The Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network spent $457,031, much of which was likely related to the stadium as well, Mr. Dunbar said. The network did not return calls asking for comment.
In New Jersey, by contrast, companies spent $933,522, according to the report, of which $257,219 came from the Communications Workers of America.
In America as a whole, telecommunications companies spent at least $77.8 million in lobbying money in 2003 and 2004.
After New York, California received the next largest share, at $14.4 million, and Texas came in third, at $14 million, although because Texas allows lobbyists to report their spending as a range, that number could be as high $26.1 million.
