Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Two years ago, a group of buisnessmen and moderate politicians of both parties formed the Project for Arizona’s Future. The group advocated for investment in education, veterans programs and biotechnology, as well as a middle of the road solution on illegal immigration. Because the group’s agenda mirrored that of Janet Napolitano, it was criticized by many Republicans who claimed that it was just a cover for moderate Republicans who supported her. Well, so what if it was? The fact that so many otherwise sensible and popular policies had been abandoned by their leaders was a big part of the reason why Napolitano won.  That ain’t her fault.

The strength of the group has been that it has focused on a single set of issues. Even though the people on the board come from different parties, they agree that these are the issues they will work on and this gives them the ability to work with people from both parties.

This is why many were shocked when the Project for Arizona’s Future seems to have adopted a new pet cause, Cox Cable:

Most Tucsonans believe good public policy happens in the middle, when differing interests come together to achieve common ground.  As we all know, compromise and cooperation are the key to good solutions.

That’s why we were pleased this morning to see that the City of Tucson and Cox Communications are moving closer to negotiating a renewal of the city’s cable agreement.

This is the type of compromise and cooperation that happened last year when the State Legislature overwhelmingly passed, and the Governor signed, the “Cable Consumer Protection Act.”  This bill set boundaries for cities to renew their cable agreements.  So far, every city that has negotiated its cable agreement has found these boundaries to be reasonable and has achieved a compromise.

In Tucson, both Cox Communications and the City of Tucson have legitimate concerns that should be worked out at the negotiating table.  Cox wants to comply with the “Cable Consumer Protection Act” and have the freedom to manage its bandwidth in order to offer better programming to consumers.  The City of Tucson wants to maintain ample access to government, educational and public channels for its citizens. 

It would be very unfortunate for this issue to end up in the courts, which is where it would be headed if they can’t come to an agreement and the City of Tucson continues to challenge last year’s law.

The special meeting of the City Council tomorrow gives us hope that these two sides can come to an agreement that is in the best interest of the consumers in Tucson.

Stay tuned for more information from us about this important issue.

More of the same “Cox Cable just wants to help people and the big bad City of Tucson won’t let them” rhetoric that we’ve become used to in this whole argument (and that we hear from Clear Channel too). It would be easier to swallow if Cox wasn’t advocating legislation that strips the City of Tucson of its ability to negotiate. Makes it a little hard to believe that they want to negotiate in good faith at all.

So, why has the Project for Arizona’s Future, who generally advocate for issues that don’t have the high dollar lobbyists, carrying water for a company that makes billions? Cox Cable is now a private corporation that doesn’t report revenues, but in it’s last quarter before going private, it made a profit of $42 million on $1.6 billion in revenue (that’s in one quarter), and the two sisters that control it’s parent company each have a net worth of $10.3 billion. Yeah, these Cox Cable needs a little more help.

One of the folks on the Project’s board is John Egan, a Vice-President of Cox Cable. I don’t know if this was done at his behest, but it looks a bit fishy. This group has been advocating for all of the right things, it would be too bad if it became just another buisiness lobby advocating for the narrow personal interests of people on its board.

NB - Cox Enterprises is the successor to a company founded by James M. Cox, who was a governor of Ohio and Democratic presidential nominee in 1920. His running mate was a former Navy Seceretary named Franklin Delano Roosevelt.