The AT&T/T-Mobile Lobbyist Army

As the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission review the proposed merger of telecom giants AT&T and T-Mobile, the two companies are sinking millions of dollars into their lobbying shops.

Recently filed disclosure reports show that AT&T spent $4.9 million on lobbying in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of 58 percent from the same time period last year. Similarly, T-Mobile increased its lobbying expenditures from $602,000 in the second quarter of 2010 to $1 million in second quarter of 2011. All told, the two telecom companies have spent about $14 million on lobbying this year alone. These numbers, however, offer an incomplete look at the AT&T/T-Mobile lobbying blitz. In the second quarter of this year the two companies spent about $1.3 million on outside lobbying firms that worked to boost government support for the merger. And those outside firms boast some heavy hitters who are going to bat for the increasingly controversial telecom deal. All told, AT&T and T-Mobile have no fewer than six former members of Congress, and a bevy of former congressional staffers, lobbying the federal government to approve the merger.