AT&T Lobbyist Faces Beltway Test in T-Mobile Deal

Like many other big corporations, AT&T annually blankets power brokers with token holiday gifts, but the cupcake campaign was notable for its military precision. A three-page spreadsheet, stamped “AT&T Proprietary (Internal Use Only),” detailed how the desserts were to be deployed to each of the 63 Federal Communication Commission offices: four dozen were assigned to the enforcement bureau, 10 dozen to the wireless divisions, 12 cupcakes to each of four FCC Commissioners, and 18 to Chairman Julius Genachowski, and so on. As it turns out, AT&T had begun its $39 billion courting of T-Mobile about the same time. The resulting deal, announced a week ago, would transform the industry if approved. It would narrow the field of major wireless providers to three and vault AT&T into the No. 1 spot, ahead of Verizon; consumer advocates say the combination will lead to higher prices.

As interested parties lobby for and against the merger, one person will be pulling at the levers of power more often and with more influence than anyone else, according to both friends and foes: AT&T’s chief lobbyist, James W. Cicconi. A master strategist, Cicconi (pronounced si-CONE-ee) internalizes the art of regulatory and legislative war — and Operation Cupcake is but one of the efforts to come out of his shop. Tutored by James A. Baker III in the ways of politics in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, Cicconi, 58, plays hardball — literally, as a pitcher in an adult baseball league, flinging fastballs toward batters more than a decade younger. His roots are in Texas, and he never forgets the lesson of the Alamo: the Texans lost. Other battles have different lessons for him. He once took his staff on an overnight retreat to Gettysburg (PA) where it toured Cemetery Ridge and Little Round Top and absorbed lessons on battlefield tactics. In 13 years at AT&T, Cicconi has helped guide the company through roughly a dozen mergers, large and small, and he has made his share of enemies in Washington. As a testament to his power, however, few of them will criticize him on the record.