ASK THE ADVOCATE: Cable company competition
Why did former Gov. Kathleen Blanco veto a bill passed by both the Louisiana House and Senate that would open up the market to allow more cable television companies to compete?
Gov. Blanco vetoed House Bill 699 in July 2006. She wrote state legislators at the time: “If the bill became effective and the result was significant revenue loss to local government, as many have reported, traditional vital services for our citizens would have to be cut or those citizens may be asked to pay increased taxes.”
HB699 would have allowed companies to obtain a 10-year state franchise certificate granting them the right to provide cable and video services throughout Louisiana. Then, as now, communications companies negotiated contracts with local governments and paid substantial fees into local government treasuries.
Blanco’s veto occurred after she met in June 2006 with a number of parish presidents and mayors who opposed statewide cable franchises because of revenue that would have been lost by local governments. Mayor-President Kip Holden was among those opponents, although East Baton Rouge Parish would have been exempt from the proposed statewide franchise law.
“I don’t want to start watching the snowball effect,” Holden said at the time. He estimated in 2006 that the city-parish collected between $5 million and $6 million in franchise fees from Cox Communications Inc., which provides cable television and telecommunications services in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Those fees continue to pour into city-parish accounts, city-parish Finance Director Marsha J. Hanlon said this month.
In calendar year 2010, Hanlon said in an email, Cox Communications paid the city-parish nearly $5.49 million in cable television and telecommunications franchise fees.