http://www.jsonline.com/business/118788659.htmlFormer state Rep. Phil Montgomery named PSC chairman
By Thomas Content of the Journal Sentinel
March 28, 2011
Former state lawmaker Phil Montgomery will chair the state Public Service Commission, Gov. Scott Walker announced Monday.
Montgomery, a Republican who represented the Green Bay area in the Legislature, worked on utility, energy and telecommunications issues during his 12 years as a state representative. He served as chairman of the Assembly's energy and utilities committee.
-snip-
During his 12 years on the Legislature, Montgomery received $24,540 in campaign contributions from energy-related companies and organizations and $10,800 from the companies in the telecommunications and computer sector, according to statistics from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's database. The only sector that provided more to Montgomery than energy was manufacturing.
-snip-
Until January, Montgomery served on the board of directors of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a national organization that works on development of state-level polices that promote limited government, free markets and federalism.
-snip-
Montgomery said his getting so much financial backing from industry "was not a concern in the Legislature; it's not a concern now. It's about moving policy forward."
Of course it's pro-industry policy.
This is ALEC's press release about naming Montgomery its Legislator of the Year in 2005:
http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/08_23_05___Montgomery_Named_ALEC_Legislator_of_the_Year.pdfNews Release
American Legislative Exchange Council
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2005
Wisconsin State Representative Phil Montgomery Receives "Legislator of the Year" Award
ALEC Honors Montgomery for Supporting Free Market and Limited Government Principles
(Washington, DC) The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) honored Wisconsin State Representative Phil Montgomery with the prestigious "Legislator of the Year" award at the organization's 32nd Annual Meeting in Grapevine, Texas on Thursday, August 4, 2005.
ALEC's 2005 National Chairman, Representative Earl Ehrhart (GA) said, "Representative Montgomery works hard to implement Jeffersonian principles and restore our founder's principles of individual liberty, limited government and the free market.
"As chairman of the Telecommunication and Information Technology Task Force's Subcommittee on Competition he has taken an active role in bringing different sides of the subcommittee together to reach compromises on divisive issues."
Representative Phil Montgomery has been an ALEC member since 1999. He serves as chairman of the Telecommunications & Information Technology Task Force's Competition Subcommittee. As a legislator, he has led the fight against government intrusion in the broadband marketplace, and has pursued competitive policies to help the industry grow and provide consumer services at affordable prices.
ALEC offers state legislators the opportunity to interact with some of America's most influential public and private sector leaders to discuss critical issues facing the states and nation today. It is the nation's largest nonpartisan, individual membership association of state legislators with over 2,400 members representing all fifty states, and 96 alumni serving in the U.S. Congress.
Notice they're praising him for leading "the fight against government intrusion in the broadband marketplace."
According to Commmon Cause
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?b=1497709&c=dkLNK1MQIwGwhat that really means is carrying water for the telecom industry by pushing "legislation that bars or makes it difficult for local governments to offer broadband Internet services to their citizens, even in areas where the telecom giants have determined it's not economically worthwhile to offer such service, such as rural and low-income areas (view ALEC's "model bill" online). ALEC has backed such bills in a number of states, including Louisiana,<27> Nebraska,<28> and Wisconsin.<29>" (The note on Wisconsin led me to look for the press release about MOntgomery being named ALEC's Legislator of the Year.)
More on what Montgomery did for ALEC in the Progressive States Network's report on ALEC, "Governing the Nation from the Statehouses":
http://www.progressivestates.org/resources/eyeOnTheRight/AlecReport_PsnVersion.pdfTELECOMS: BLOCKING MUNICIPAL BROADBAND AT EXPENSE OF HIGH TECH
In August 2005, ALEC honored Wisconsin State Representative Phil Montgomery with its “Legislator of the Year” award for his Wisconsin legislative efforts against local government plans for municipally-owned broadband networks and his role in ALEC in taking the campaign national. This campaign both reflects ALEC’s effective representation of its own corporate telecom clients, and the way it serves that narrow if powerful economic base at the expense of the broader economic interest.
Rolling Back Local Action: Across the country, ALEC has helped draft state legislation to block or hamstring cities that sought to bypass high-cost telecom services in favor of building cheaper or even free Internet services for their residents. ALEC’s research ally, the Heartland Institute, has been particularly obsessed with the issue, churning out multiple research attacks on the proposed municipal networks.
By June 2005, lobbying by ALEC and its telecom company backers had pushed through legislation in Arkansas, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington State to limit municipal broadband networks.
Montgomery was "chairman of the Telecommunication and Information Technology Task Force's Subcommittee on Competition" according to that ALEC press release in 2005.
More recently he was on ALEC's Board of Directors, and this is their announcement in May of last year about his plans to retire soon:
http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Wisconsin_Representative_Phil_Montgomery_Announces_His_Retirement&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=14397Wisconsin Representative Phil Montgomery Announces His Retirement
May 7, 2010
Washington, D.C.--Our good friend and colleague Phil Montgomery, Wisconsin State representative and long time ALEC member, has announced his retirement from the State Assembly on Friday, May 7th. Phil will continue to serve his constituents and remain on the ALEC Board until the completion of his legislative term which will be the end of this year. He was first elected in 1998, from the 4th Assembly District, which includes the villages of Allouez and Ashwaubenon, and parts of the cities of Green Bay and De Pere.
Phil’s outstanding leadership and initiative has been instrumental in making ALEC a better and more effective organization. It has been a great pleasure to serve with him on the ALEC Board of Directors and his wit and wisdom will be missed. We all wish him the very best in his future endeavors and hope that he will remain an active participant in ALEC.
-snip-
Oh, I'm sure he will "remain an active participant in ALEC."
I'm sure, too, that Walker was planning to appoint Montgomery well before Professor Cronon drew lot of attention to ALEC.
And this is one of the reasons for the Republcans' vindictive demand for Cronon's emails.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
