Rush's million-dollar conflict?
April 25, 2006
BY LYNN
SWEET Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON -- An Englewood
community center founded by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), a key player on
telecommunications legislation, received a $1 million grant from the
charitable arm of SBC/AT&T, one of the nation's largest phone
companies.
The chief of a congressional watchdog group says Rush's
ongoing association with the Rebirth of Englewood Community Development
Corporation and his role in shaping telecommunications law as a member of
the Energy and Commerce Committee is a conflict of interest. Using
charitable giving as a backdoor way to curry favor with lawmakers is
coming under increasing scrutiny, figuring in controversies associated
with former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Rep. Alan Mollohan
(D-W.Va.), who was forced to temporarily step aside as the ranking
Democrat on the Ethics panel.
On Wednesday, the energy and
commerce panel on which Rush sits is set to vote on a controversial
rewrite of telecommunications law co-sponsored by Rush and backed by major
phone companies eager to compete with cable television companies.
"It is a clear conflict of interest for Rep. Rush to weigh in on
this bill," said Sheila Krumholz, the acting executive director of the
nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which researches money in
politics. "People can disagree about where to draw the line on
contributions and abstaining from votes, but $1 million is definitely over
that line."
Rush is the only Democrat to sponsor the
"Communications Opportunity Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006." He has
been working with committee chair Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) to promote the
"Barton-Rush" bill.
Rush, asked to explain whether he had a
conflict in sponsoring telecommunications legislation in the wake of the
grant, replied in a statement that the "real conflict" stems from
inequities in the telecommunications marketplace that hurt the poor.
"It is a systemic institutional disinvestment in [the] poor by
corporate America in communities such as Englewood," Rush said. "We
deserve an even playing field."
Final check written in 2004
The SBC Foundation grant was given to the Rebirth of Englewood
CDC, a non-profit dedicated to improving the economy of the impoverished
South Side community in Rush's congressional district.
Rush and
his wife, Carolyn, are on the board of the Englewood organization, and his
son, Flynn, works for the center. Rush has been a member of the Energy and
Commerce panel for more than a decade and serves on its subcommittee on
Telecommunications and the Internet.
The SBC charity made the
first of a series of payments totaling $1 million in 2001 to the Englewood
group to create the still unbuilt "Bobby L. Rush Center for Community
Technology." The final check was written in 2004, with the SBC Foundation
delaying the last payment for a year over concerns that the project was
not moving forward. The Rush center is now expected to open within the
next 12 months.
In his statement, Rush -- seeking to downplay the
conflict claim -- noted that the $1 million grant "you are referring to is
over a half decade old."
Rush says it sparks competition
Communications giant SBC Communications Inc. acquired AT&T
last year and switched over to the AT&T name. AT&T spokesman
Claudia Jones said the company remains "hopeful" that the center will be
built and stressed its importance to Englewood residents.
"The
people in Englewood should not suffer because they have a congressman on
the Energy and Commerce Committee," Jones said.
The Barton-Rush
measure gives phone companies a national television franchise and avoids
the need to get approval from 30,000 local governments.
Rush
argues that this will provide more competition and cheaper services for
low-income communities.
Critics of the Barton-Rush bill counter
that the bill offers no guarantees that a company would go to the expense
of investing in building infrastructure to serve the kind of poor
neighborhoods Rush represents. The measure was approved in subcommittee on
a 27-4 vote, with 11 Democratic "yes" votes.
Celia Wexler, vice
president of Common Cause, another watchdog group (which opposes the bill
because of threats to Internet freedoms) said, merits of the bill aside,
the SBC grant and Rush's relationship with the center is "troubling."
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