State Wide Web: Perdue’s decision lacks backbone and hurts rural communities

Gov. Bev Perdue decided to neither sign nor veto a bill restricting the ability of municipalities to provide broadband Internet access to their citizens.

In doing so, Perdue allows the bill to become law, albeit under pretext of opposition — a move that may be good for politics, but is certainly bad for North Carolinians.

The bill protects private corporations by limiting the competitiveness of cities and towns. Under the Level Playing Field/Local Government Competition Act, municipalities cannot subsidize service fees or borrow money for projects without specific taxpayer approval. They even have to set up separate budgets for their services so they can pay taxes as though they were private companies.

Time Warner Cable has pressed for similar legislation since 2005, when a state appeals court upheld the right of municipalities to provide broadband. The corporation’s argument pivots on an illogical and unrealistic appeal to the ideology of free-market capitalism, complaining that it should not have to compete with the government.

But Time Warner seems to forget that it owes its ability to gouge and neglect entire communities to the very governments it now opposes. Like most U.S. cable providers, Time Warner was granted local monopolies for bearing the cost of infrastructure.

So, while Time Warner blames local governments for tipping the sacred, invisible hand of capitalism, reality begs to differ. Rather than investing in the infrastructure it needs to provide competitively fast service for low prices, the corporation has paid lobbyists and made campaign contributions to preserve its monopoly.

The impending bill has generated national criticism from technology analysts and Internet-advocacy groups to news media and legal scholars.

Critics ranging from Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig to Red Hat Vice President Michael Tiemann, have written open letters to Perdue imploring her to veto the bill.

Only Gov. Perdue’s response can rival Time Warner’s argument in its deception and destruction.

Perdue needed only to lift her oft-used veto pen to protect her state from anti-competitive corporations. Instead, she issued a press release stating to the legislature that North Carolinians deserve fair access to broadband. From the other side of her mouth, she effectively told Time Warner to continue to defraud her constituency.

Time Warner’s political action committee directly contributed $6,250 to Perdue’s 2008 campaign, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. While the donation was paltry compared to the $14.9 million she raised in total, it still placed well above the median contribution of $250.

Rural North Carolinian mill workers, farmers and textile workers watched as the Internet helped carry their jobs abroad. In refusing to veto this act, Perdue has shredded their passports.