He’s also one of a few GOP lawmakers from Texas whose campaigns have benefited greatly from the company’s political action arms.

Penned by U.S. Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) and signed by 99 other House GOP lawmakers, including 16 from Texas, the letter stresses the job creation that would result from the $39 billion takeover — a claim some industry experts don’t buy.

While the DOJ characterized the deal as anti-competitive and an impediment to quality, fair pricing and innovation, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle continue to support the merger.

Finance records show the majority of those vocal advocates are the recipients of AT&T campaign cash.

As the Texas Independent previously reported 66 of the more than 70 signatories of a similar letter drafted by Democratic lawmakers, including a handful of Texas legislators, received a combined half-million dollars in campaign contributions from the Dallas-based telecom giant in the most recent election cycle. An analysis of federal campaign records show AT&T similarly backed supporters of the GOP version.

According to Federal Election Campaign finance disclosures, all the Texas lawmakers who signed the letter received thousands from AT&T’s PAC over the years, for a combined total of more than half a million dollars.

U.S Representatives Joe Barton ($63,000), Pete Sessions ($60,000), Ralph Hall ($59,000) and John Carter ($55,000) were among the top AT&T beneficiaries, with others not far behind.

Michael Burgess ($47,500), John Culberson ($47,000), Michael McCaul ($47,000) and Michael Conaway ($42,500) also saw donations from AT&T’s PAC during their time in office.

Additionally, questions were raised when reporters discovered AT&T lobbyists were promoting a fundraiser for Olson on the same day he sent out the letter in support of the merger. It was requested that PACs willing to help host the event pay $2,500.

A spokeswoman for Olson told the National Journal there was “no connection between the letter and the fundraiser,” and stressed the event was not hosted by AT&T, but did acknowledge the company’s donations to the lawmaker.

In the letter, lawmakers say blocking the deal would “thwart job creation and economic growth,” a core sentiment relayed by other advocates of the merger like Texas governor and GOP presidential contender Rick Perry, who sent a letter of his own to the FCC in support of the deal. AT&T has doled out $692,195 in donations to Perry.

AT&T claims the deal will produce some 96,000 openings, but groups including the D.C.-based digital rights interest group Public Knowledge — and the DOJ itself — have debunked that assertion, saying the deal would actually fail to protect American jobs.

Historically, AT&T mergers have led to a destruction in jobs numbers, said Public Knowledge communications director Art Brodsky. Over the past decade, AT&T has cut 10,000 jobs each year — a trend expected to accelerate if the merger passes federal muster. Along with the job loss, he said, the merger would also shrink an already limited wireless market, reducing the availability of less expensive or more reliable providers. The multi-billion dollar deal, Brosdky said, would signal “a complete dismantling of the country’s anti-trust enforcement.”

The link between the telecommunication giant’s generous donations and lawmakers’ support is “blatant,” he said.

“Ultimately, it’s their constituency that is going to hurt,” he said. “When you have one company owning 80 percent of the cellular market, prices will go up, service will go down, phones and plan availability will lessen. The consequences of a concentrated market to constituents should be held paramount to the welfare of the companies that give them money.”

“But in Congress if they can, they like to bestow favors to their home team,” he added, “And for AT&T, Texas is the home team.”

The federal suit seeks a court order halting the deal, calling the mega-merger anti-competitive. “AT&T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low-priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market,” the U.S. filing read. The merger would create the largest U.S. cellphone carrier in an already concentrated national market.

“Any way you look at this transaction, it’s anti-competitive,” Sharis Pozen, the acting assistant attorney general in charge of DOJ’s antitrust unit, told Politico. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski echoed apprehension about the merger’s economic consequences, saying, “although our process is not complete, the record before this agency also raises serious concerns about the impact of the proposed transaction on competition.”

The opinions expressed by the DOJ stand in contrast to Gov. Rick Perry’s ongoing support for the acquisition by the Dallas-based company. In a May letter to the FCC, Perry says light regulation is key to competition, and calls for the federal government’s “swift approval” of the merger, to “send a strong signal to employers, consumers and states” that the federal government is serious about American technology.

Perry and other Texas Congressmen have been promoting the deal for months, citing job growth as a factor (a claim refuted by industry experts and lawmakers) and earlier Wednesday, AT&T said the merger would bring 5,000 outsourced call center jobs to the U.S.

As the Texas Independent previously reported, the merger would likely result in the loss of hundreds of call center jobs in South Texas minority communities like Brownsville, which already face high unemployment numbers. Now, AT&T says it doesn’t expect any job losses for call center workers.

AT&T was the top contributor to federal campaigns from 1990-2010, donating more than $45 million to candidates from both parties and spending more than $140 million on lobbying in the last 14 years alone, according to media reform group Free Press. As the Texas Independent has reported, this state is no exception — since 2002, AT&T doled out $692,195 in donations to Perry; $75,000 to merger supporter U.S. Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) since 1997; $69,800 to U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). Smith penned a letter to the FCC and DOJ, asking them “to carefully weigh the evidence” against the merger.

A handful of Texas lawmakers were among House Democrats who added their signatures to the letter advocating the merger, and received nearly $500,000 from AT&T.

Several media activist groups including Free Press, the Center for Media Justice, the Media Access Project and Public Knowledge fought hard against the merger, calling it a blow the public interest and the economy. Seen as a victory, the DOJ ruling comes after mounting calls, letters and research debunking AT&T’s claims by media activists.

“Blocking this merger is a major victory for the public interest,” said Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron in a statement. “The Justice Department clearly based its decision on the facts, and, as Free Press has argued from the start, the overwhelming evidence shows that this merger would lead to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers, and massive job cuts.”

“Surprised and disappointed” by the DOJ decision, AT&T is expected to fight the ruling in court.

“AT&T has already invested untold millions in lobbying and campaign contributions, and it is going to play every card in the deck to try to get this merger done,” said Aaron.

The $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile by AT&T, currently being reviewed by the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission, is expected to displace up to 20,000 T-Mobile employees and cut $10 billion in investments. Those hardest hit will be workers at T-Mobile call centers, three of which are located in Texas cities. As recently as January, the centers sought to hire 500 bilingual employees in the border cities of Brownsville and Mission.

The Brownsville call center opened in 2007, projected to add 750 new jobs over five years and inject $15 million in annual salary into the Rio Grande Valley economy.

The two cities already hold higher than average unemployment rates at 13 percent, surpassing Texas’ 8.2 percent rate. Author Dave Saldana, who serves as communications director for media reform group Free Press points out that in Mission almost half of the city’s residents lack health insurance. Frisco, the third city, is a wealthy Dallas suburb with 8.7 percent unemployment.

Even though the merger would likely leave hundreds of Latino workers out of a job, in contrast to the Perry campaign’s key talking point, the governor continues to champion the deal.

“We have all benefited from the highly competitive wireless marketplace that flourished even in our most challenging economic times, thanks in large part to a light regulatory touch,” writes Perry in a letter to the FCC. “The future rests in wireless broadband, and the federal government’s swift approval of the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile would send a strong signal to employers, consumers and states that our federal government is serious about meeting the communication and technology needs of Texans and all Americans.”

Perry’s enthusiasm echoes other Texas lawmakers who have received thousands of dollars from the telecomm giant, as the Texas Independent previously reported and the GOP presidential candidate’s past campaigns have been buoyed by AT&T cash; since 2002, the Dallas-based corporation gave Perry $692,195 in donations. And those generous funds will likely flow as Perry moves through the trail.

Some proponents of the mega-merger say it will deliver service to rural areas more quickly and actually create jobs — but that claim is refuted by industry experts and lawmakers like Sen. Al Franken, who say the acquisition will cause job losses and higher consumer prices. Faster service would happen with or without the merger, and rural communities actually stand to incur the most harm if the merger takes place, Free Press argues.

If approved, Franken writes, the merger would cause “substantial” harm to the public interest and create an “effective duopoly,” further consolidating the concentrated media market.

Announced in March, the proposed $39 billion takeover of T-Mobile by wireless provider AT&T, would create the nation’s largest wireless company, putting 80 percent of the wireless market into the hands of just two companies. (Verizon is the other.)

Proponents say the deal will spur innovation and help bring service to rural areas more quickly while critics argue those promises are overstated, would likely result despite a merger and have the potential to limit service and harm those customers as the options become increasingly concentrated.

The acquisition, currently being reviewed by the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission, is drawing support from Texas politicians on both sides of the aisle, who share in receiving generous funds from AT&T.

In a letter addressed to the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission, key lawmaker U.S Representative Lamar Smith, R-Texas, urged the federal government on Monday to “carefully weigh all of the evidence” on the proposed merger between the two telecommunication giants, reports Reuters, Politico and the National Journal:

“Recently, you have heard from members of Congress who, based on the limited information provided in congressional hearings, urged you to conclude that this merger should be blocked,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, they provided you with only one side of the story. I feel compelled to briefly point out the other side.”

While not explicitly endorsing the merger, Smith pointed to various benefits like job creation and competition, and advised agencies to consider these advantages before coming to a conclusion. Smith said other lawmakers’ objections to the merger — like worries from Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., who said in July that the merger would harm to competition, consumers and fail to be in the public interest — were “one-sided” and based on limited information.

Although he and other legislators aren’t granted a direct role in reviewing the merger, Reuters notes, they can be influential in shaping public opinion, by holding hearings and providing oversight of regulatory bodies. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Smith’s agency oversees the Justice Department, where — aside from the FCC — the final decision lies.

However, Smith’s concern, writes Political Correction, is “drowned out” by his pocketbook, which sports generous donations from the two telecom companies. Smith has received $69,800 from AT&T’s PACs, making the company his second-largest benefactor over his career. Smith generated next to nothing from Sprint, the company that stands to take the greatest hit from the merger’s approval.

AT&T PACs are the first or second greatest donors for Republican chairmen heading the three House committees that oversee the merger.

Another strong supporter of the merger is U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, joined other lawmakers in signing a June letter to the FCC, supporting the deal.

Green has also benefited from AT&T funds. Since 1997 his campaign has received around $75,000 from the company’s two PACs, according to a Federal Elections Commission records. Money from Sprint’s PAC totaled less than $4,000 during this time period. In the 2010 election cycle, Green received $10,000 from AT&T, who co-hosted at least one fundraiser for the Green campaign in 2010, while letter co-signers and Texas congresmen Al Green ($10,000), Eddie Bernice Johnson ($9,000) and Rubén Hinojosa ($7,500) pocketed cash from the telecomm PAC during the same cycle,according to the Center for Responsive Politics and Paidcontent.org.

The legislators are part of a coalition of 77 Democratic lawmakers who added their signatures to the letter advocating for the merger; 66 of those names received nearly a half-million dollars in campaign contributions from AT&T.

The company was the top contributor to federal campaigns between 1990 and 2010, donating more than $45 million to candidates from both major parties while spending more than $140 million on lobbying in the last 14 years alone, according to media reform group Free Press. That organization sent a letter of its own in June to heads of the U.S. Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which includes ranking member Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, debunking some of AT&T’s promises.

“AT&T gives millions of dollars to people running for office, and then spends even more to meet with them and influence them once they take office.  All that money may or may not buy votes, but it surely buys access,” said Matt Wood, policy director of Free Press. “It’s little wonder then, perhaps, that politicians are willing to support the company and mouth AT&T talking points that run counter to the truth.”

Claims about jobs, rural coverage, service improvements, and prices made first by AT&T and later echoed by political officials, go against a cursory review of the facts, which shows AT&T’s guarantees are overblown, unrelated to the merger, or downright false, said Wood.

Meanwhile, lawmakers like Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., have been especially outspoken against the deal, calling the move a dangerous blow to competition and innovation. They have said the deal would result in job losses, higher prices, decreased choice and cause “substantial” harm to the public interest. If approved, argued Franken, the market would see an “effective duopoly.”

“It would concentrate enormous power over the entire telecommunications sector in the hands of only two companies, and it would incentivize AT&T and Verizon to coordinate prices to the detriment of consumers,” wrote Franken in a 24-page letter to the FCC. It would create an unreasonable risk to the economy to entrust too much power over such a crucial industry to a company that has a history of market domination. This transaction is not in the public interest. If approved, it would result in greatly reduced competition.”

The Dallas Morning News‘ Wayne Slater reports that “Oil executives, beer distributors, lobbyists and big-dollar campaign donors — many with interests before the state — are providing the nearly $2 million for the swearing-in. In exchange, they are offered various levels of access” to Perry and Dewhurst.

Similarly, moneyed interests and groups are footing the bills for gubernatorial pomp in Florida and Michigan, as has been reported in the Texas Independent’s sister publications the Florida Independent and Michigan Messenger.

While Perry and Dewhurst are longtime incumbents, voters in Florida and Michigan elected new leaders Gov. Rick Scott and Gov. Rick Snyder, respectively.

In addition to Perry, Dewhurst, Scott and Snyder all being Republicans (and three of the four being named ‘Rick’), another common denominator is AT&T, which gave $100,000 for the Texas inauguration and $25,000 in Florida. AT&T also donated an undisclosed amount in Michigan, where Snyder’s office released a list of donors but not donation amounts.

Tobacco company Altria donated $25,000 apiece for the ceremonies in Texas and Florida. Donations for the Florida inauguration totaled more than $2.8 million, according to the most recent contribution report.

As Slater notes in the Morning News, new California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, attended an inaugural party sponsored by a public employees union.

First, here’s how the 2003 Medicare prescription drug law has benefited companies:

For every $100 the company spends on retiree drug benefits, Medicare sends it a subsidy payment of $28. On top of that, the companies got a rare double tax break. The $28 subsidy is tax-free, and the company was allowed to deduct the entire $100 as a business expense.

Under the new reform law, the 28 percent subsidy remains, and it remains tax free. “But companies will no longer be allowed to deduct the subsidy as if it were an expenditure of their own,” the Times writes.

Sounds reasonable, right? Not in the eyes of the companies that benefit from the current system. They’re claiming that the change will hobble their hiring abilities (i.e., lower their profits). And conservatives are listening.

“This added burden to corporate America would be significant at the best of economic times, but unfortunately we’re living in the worst of times — when every spare corporate dollar should be spent on retaining or hiring new employees,” an emblematic critic wrote recently for Townhall.

“Added burden,” of course, implies an initial burden. But, as Ben Armbruster of Think Progress recently pointed out, some of the companies making the most fuss over the elimination of their pet tax deduction are among those that pay the least to Uncle Sam. It’s tough to cry for Boeing when its actual tax rate, at 3.2 percent, is about one-sixth of a middle class family’s.

Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco dismissed the cases because Congress explicitly gave the telecom companies immunity from civil suits in a 2008 amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

Although the customers who sued, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, claimed that the immunity provision of the law was unconstitutional, Judge Walker disagreed.

Significantly, however, he noted that at least one part of the argument presented “a close question,” leaving open the possibility that his decision could be reversed on appeal.

The lawyers who brought the case said yesterday that they plan to pursue that course.

“We’re deeply disappointed in Judge Walker’s ruling today,” Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Keith Perine at CQ Politics. “The retroactive immunity law unconstitutionally takes away Americans’ claims arising out of the First and Fourth Amendments, violates the federal government’s separation of powers as established in the Constitution, and robs innocent telecom customers of their rights without due process of law.”

Judge Walker also specifically wrote that his decision in the case against the telecoms does not foreclose other cases based on similar facts filed against the government.

“The court agrees with the United States and the telecommunications company defendants on this point: plaintiffs retain a means of redressing the harms alleged in their complaints by proceeding against governmental actors and entities who are, after all, the primary actors in the alleged wiretapping activities,” Vaughn wrote.

Meanwhile, in a separate ruling in the Al-Haramain case, Judge Walker ruled that the defunct Islamic charity can proceed with its case against the government even without the document that the Obama administration has been trying so desperately to conceal. That document — which the government inadvertently disclosed to Al-Haramain’s lawyers — establishes that the organization was wiretapped, its lawyers say.

A hearing on the merits of the case — whether the government broke the law when it wiretapped Al-Haramain and its lawyers without a warrant — is scheduled for September 1.

A ruling from Judge Walker last July that the president lacks the authority to disregard the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, does not bode well for the government.

Jon Eisenberg, Al-Haramain’s lawyer, summed it up at the time this way: “Judge Walker ruled, effectively, that President George W. Bush is a felon.”

Just the other day, when I was writing about the case of Jewel v. NSA (and responding to the Columbia Journalism Review’s criticism that no one was covering this important case about warrantless wiretapping), I remarked that while everyone’s been up in arms about the Obama administration’s claiming the case should be dismissed because it would reveal “state secrets” — the same argument the Justice Department has made repeatedly in previous cases alleging illegal wiretapping and abusive interrogation programs — no one seemed to notice that the Jewel case charges that the wiretapping program is still going on.

Here’s a quote from the government’s brief asking the federal court to dismiss the case:

Plaintiffs in this action allege that the Government, through the National Security Agency (“NSA”), is undertaking an “illegal and unconstitutional dragnet communications surveillance in concert with major telecommunications companies,” and that NSA has indiscriminately intercepted the content of communications, as well as the communications records, of millions of ordinary Americans.

Interestingly, nowhere in its brief does the government deny that.  It just argues vehemently that the court should dismiss the case.

So should we really be all that surprised that, as James Risen and Eric Lichtblau report in The New York Times today, the charges may turn out to be true?

As Spencer’s already mentioned, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) and the Senate Intelligence Committee today promised to investigate. They might want to call the Electronic Frontier Foundation and their clients in the Jewel case as witnesses.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Katie Couric (CBS News)

In an interview that aired Wednesday night on the CBS Evening News, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested to Katie Couric that the Obama administration is unlikely to depart dramatically from the Bush administration’s position on the use of the state secrets privilege, noting just one case out of about 20 currently under review in which the Justice Department is seriously considering changing its stance. He did not say which case that was.

Most likely, the reversal won’t come in the case of Jewel v. NSA, because Holder’s Justice Department Friday again broadly asserted the “state secrets” privilege as a grounds for dismissing the case, brought by AT&T customers alleging the government used dragnet surveillance to monitor the domestic telephone communications of millions of ordinary Americans.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

The Department of Justice – first under President George W. Bush and now under President Obama – has repeatedly invoked this executive privilege, which allows the president to prevent public disclosure of evidence in court by claiming that its release would endanger national security. And increasingly, the Department of Justice has used the privilege not only to prevent public disclosure of documents, but to dismiss entire cases brought by victims of illegal policies, claiming that the subject matter of the case itself is a state secret, and that even the judge shouldn’t review the documents in private. A recent report by the Constitution Project, a bipartisan think tank, found that the Bush administration used the privilege to seek “blanket dismissal of every case challenging the constitutionality of specific, ongoing government programs” in 92 percent more cases per year than in the previous decade.

Last night, Holder told Couric that after he took over the attorney general’s office, he asked lawyers in the Justice Department to see “if there’s a way where we can be more surgical, whether there is a way in which we can share more information.” The state secrets privilege, he said, is appropriately invoked “at certain times”, but “I want to make sure that we only do it where it’s absolutely necessary. I would only apply the doctrine where national security was at stake, where the lives of the American people were at stake,” he said.

Yet it’s difficult to see that standard at work in the recent cases where the Justice Department has invoked the state secrets privilege.

For example, in a federal court in San Francisco on Friday, the Obama Justice Department moved to dismiss the Jewel case based in part on the state secrets privilege. The AT&T customers who filed suit, represented by the Electronic Freedom Foundation, claim the National Security Agency illegally intercepted their calls and obtained their phone records as part of a broad-reaching, ongoing national security surveillance program and in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments of the United States Constitution, the separation of powers doctrine and federal statutes.

In its legal brief filed with the court, the government’s lawyers claim the case must be dismissed because allowing it to go forward at all would disclose information about the NSA surveillance program, which is itself a state secret. Disclosure of the information the customers want to see, claims the government, “which concerns how the United States seeks to detect and prevent terrorist attacks, would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security,” Justice Department lawyers said in their filing.

This is the second attempt by ordinary AT&T customers to learn more about the government’s secret domestic wiretapping program and to hold the government or a company that assisted it accountable. An earlier case, also brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T itself, was quashed when, after the Bush administration had made the state secrets arguments in court, Congress passed a law granting immunity to AT&T and other telecommunications companies from lawsuits from customers who claimed the companies helped the government spy on them.

The broad use of the state secrets privilege to dismiss entire court cases challenging unlawful government actions has outraged civil liberties and open government groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional Rights. Such advocates had counted on Obama’s promises in the first days of his presidency to run a more transparent government than his predecessor. But the Obama Justice Department already, in several cases seeking information about Bush administration counter-terrorism activities, has invoked the state secrets privilege to prevent the disclosure of critical evidence.

For example, in Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Obama, which TWI has been following, the Obama administration asserted that the Bush administration’s domestic warrantless wiretapping program, or Terrorist Surveillance Program, is a state secret that cannot be revealed without endangering national security. Never mind that President George W. Bush had himself acknowledged the program’s existence, and President Obama has said it is no longer operative.

And in Mohammed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, which TWI first wrote about in January, the Obama administration asserted the state secrets privilege to seek dismissal of a case brought by five victims of the Bush administration’s “extraordinary rendition” program — which transferred prisoners to foreign countries for interrogation under torture. In that case, the victims, including Binyam Mohamed, the British resident I’ve written about, sued the subsidiary of Boeing that allegedly assisted the CIA in its torture program. The Bush administration immediately swooped in and convinced the federal court to dismiss the case because the now-defunct extraordinary rendition program is supposedly a “state secret.” In February, the Obama administration, to the surprise of even some of the judges sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that day, continued to maintain that argument.

During last night’s interview, Couric asked Holder whether he thought the state secrets doctrine had been abused by the Bush administration.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Holder. “On the basis of the two, three cases we’ve had to review so far, I think that the invocation of the doctrine was correct. We – reversed – are in the process of looking at one case. But I think we’re very likely to reverse it.”

Presumably, the three cases he’s referring to are the Jewel, Al-Haramain and Jeppesen Dataplan. But Holder went on to say that there have been more than 20 such assertions in cases that are still open. He added that a report on the Justice Department’s use of the privilege is being prepared, and his “hope is to be able to share the results of that report with the American people.”

Marc Ambinder, who obtained an early transcript of the interview, wrote Wednesday in The Atlantic that a senior Justice Department official “declined to elaborate” on in which case Holder was planning to reverse the department’s position.

Congress, meanwhile, may not leave the matter in Holder’s hands. In February, Rep. Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and several co-sponsors introduced the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009, which would require a federal judge to look at the disputed evidence rather than dismiss the case outright based solely on the government’s assertion that its disclosure would endanger national security. A parallel bill was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and has six co-sponsors.

If so, you’ve probably wondered if there was anything you could do about it. As it turns out, there is — as long as you happen to be married to a powerful senator who sits on the the Senate Commerce Committee.

In June of this year, Verizon Wireless delivered, free of charge, a portable cell phone tower to the 15-acre estate near Sedona, Ariz., owned by Sen. John McCain and his wife, Cindy, according to The Washington Post. In July, AT&T provided another portable tower. One year earlier, Cindy McCain had put in a request on Verizon’s Website to improve cell phone service at her residence.

Over the course of the past year, Cindy McCain had offered land for a permanent cell tower and Verizon embarked on an expensive process to meet her needs, hiring contractors and seeking county land-use permits even though few people other than the McCains would benefit from the tower…

On Sept. 18, 2007, a Mesa, Ariz., contractor working for Verizon surveyed the McCain property. Another contractor drafted blueprints (see document) calling for moving a utility shed and installing a 40-foot tower with two antennas and a microwave dish, surrounded by a six-foot wooden fence.

Construction costs would be $22,000, records show. Industry specialists said the figure probably only covers the tower and fence because the antennas, the dish and power source would run the cost into the six figures.

Why would Verizon and AT&T undertake such expenses on behalf of a very small number of customers? There is at least one possible explanation.

Ethics lawyers said Cindy McCain’s dealings with the wireless companies stand out because Sen. John McCain is a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission and the telecommunications industry. He has been a leading advocate for industry-backed legislation, fighting regulations and taxes on telecommunications services.

McCain and his campaign have close ties to Verizon and AT&T. Five campaign officials, including campaign manager Rick Davis, have worked as lobbyists for Verizon. Former McCain staffer Robert Fisher is an in-house lobbyist for Verizon and is volunteering for the campaign. Fisher, Verizon chief executive Ivan Seidenberg and company lobbyists have raised more than $1.3 million for McCain’s presidential campaign and Verizon employees are among the top 20 corporate donors over McCain’s political career, giving more than $155,000 to his campaigns.

McCain’s Senate chief of staff Mark Buse, senior strategist Charles R. Black Jr., and several other campaign staffers have registered as AT&T lobbyists in the past. AT&T Executive Vice President Timothy McKone and AT&T lobbyists have raised more than $2.3 million for McCain. AT&T employees have donated more than $325,000 to McCain campaigns, putting the company in the No. 3 spot for career donations to McCain, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

“It raises the aura of special consideration for somebody because he is a member of the Senate,” said Stanley Brand, a former House counsel for Democrats and an ethics attorney who represents politicians of both parties. “Here is a guy who is campaigning as Mr. Maverick and Mr. Reformer and he keeps skirting the edge.”

Some may note that, because McCain is the Republican presidential nominee, his security detail provided by the U.S. Secret Service may require solid coverage to perform its duties. According to the post, the service could have made do with the existing coverage, because it relies on multiple layers of communications, including radio. However, the plans for the permanent tower on the property were well underway by the time the Secret Service contacted Verizon and asked to speed up the process after Memorial Day. The portable towers then arrived promptly.

The Post reports that plans for the permanent tower were killed soon after the newspaper put in a records request, Verizon killed the project, saying “it doesn’t make business sense.”

Not surprisingly, the McCain campaign denies McCain’s position or connections to the telecommunications industry’s lobbyists played any role in the extraordinary attention the Arizona senator received.

And maybe they didn’t. But next time you find yourself living somewhere with sub-par cell phone service, just for fun, why not give Verizon or AT&T a call and request your own personal cell-phone tower and see how quickly they spring into action.