Lobbying

President Donald Trump continued to needle Amazon, claiming the company maintains an advantageous relationship with the US Postal Service amounting to a "scam" worth "billions of dollars." The President wrote on Twitter:

Sinclair Broadcast Group — a media company run by a family of multi-millionaire Republican donors — is on the cusp of owning enough local television stations to reach 70 percent of American households. On the day that Donald Trump was elected, it would have been all but impossible for any single broadcaster to claim that large a share of the local TV news market.

The tech industry is splintering in the wake of the controversies surrounding social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube. A wide range of companies — from legacy Silicon Valley firms like IBM and Oracle to business-focused firms like Salesforce and Cisco — want to be seen as responsible players who can be trusted to make wise decisions when faced with tough calls. Companies of all stripes are trying to explain more clearly what they do, why they're different, and how they benefit society, one senior level official at a non-internet company said.

[Commentary] Sinclair’s behavior in trying to merge with Tribune is doing it — and the entire broadcasting industry — no favors. By dragging out this process, and by pressing for every advantage, Sinclair is making life difficult for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, who has been broadcasters’ best friend in that job in decades.

[Commentary] The big Internet service provider gate-keepers may have bought the silence of Congress, but they cannot buy the silence of the people. We know there is overwhelming popular support for an open internet with strong net neutrality rules.  But we have to demonstrate this support and the power behind it.  We must make our voices heard.  Contacting Congress now on the CRA is vital—your Senators, of course, but your House members, too.  Tell them your vote in the next election depends on their vote now to restore net neutrality. 

Former White House ethics attorney Walter Shaub questioned whether a gun that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai received from the National Rifle Association (NRA) violates the FCC’s ethics rules. In a number of tweets on Feb 23, Shaub expressed his confusion as to why accepting the gift didn’t go against the standards of conduct for federal employees that bar employees from receiving gifts from lobbyists, such as the NRA.

Back in the day, being Google's top lobbyist seemed like a pretty plum gig. After all, everybody in town wanted to be aligned with the tech darling. Now that Washington thinks Silicon Valley could use a bit of regulating—on everything from anti-trust issues to sex trafficking—the work has gotten trickier. This has only made Molinari, a former Republican member of Congress, more important in Washington. And not just on the policy points.

Could the swamp really be automated? The question feels almost alien. At the moment, if “automation” and “Washington” are used in the same sentence, it’s usually to decry how behind the curve policymakers are on a transformative economic issue like industrial robots or self-driving cars. In its own workings, Washington seems almost a uniquely un-automatable place, a constitutionally erected edifice of institutions and people driven by irreplaceable experience and relationships. FiscalNote is demonstrating that’s not true. 

According to a Bloomberg analysis of Senate disclosures dating back to 2000, lobbying of the White House and its key bureaus by US tech companies has increased steadily, with an acceleration in the past six years. In 2000, only Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle disclosed lobbying then-President Bill Clinton’s White House, including offices potentially representing his closest advisers. Disclosures filed with the government show that, in 2017, lobbyists working for Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Twitter,  and Uber Technologies sought to influence parts of the Executiv

In April 2017, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, led the charge for his agency to approve rules allowing television broadcasters to greatly increase the number of stations they own.