Proponents of the breeding election participate in the statewide women’s march held after Texas introduced a near-complete ban on abortion procedures and access to abortion-inducing drugs on October 2, 2021 in Brownsville, Texas.
Veronica Cardenas | Reuters
The Dallas Morning News won’t run an ad targeting AT&T to back Texan lawmakers who have backed the state’s tough anti-abortion law, according to the Democratic Super-PAC behind the ad.
The ad was due to appear on the newspaper’s website on Tuesday. The newspaper said it had a policy against advertising that named companies, according to American Bridge, which paid for the ad. American Bridge said it submitted the ad to the newspaper last week.
The Dallas Morning News decision came after CNBC reported Monday that the PAC, jointly headed by former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, was aiming to run ads that blew AT&T to aid lawmakers who helped fund the Texas Act, also known as SB8.
AT&T is headquartered in Dallas. The Dallas Morning News is owned by the DallasNews Corp.
An American Bridge spokeswoman relayed to CNBC what she said as text from an email sent by a Dallas Morning News account representative.
“I just heard from the ad approval department. I’m sorry for the late notice, but when it got final approval it was decided to request another revision. There’s a backstory (before me) that becomes The Dallas Morning News Don’t advertise specific companies by name, “said the Dallas Morning News agent’s email.
“I went to see my president to see if we could change this by referring to AT&T without giving the name. I am so sorry for any inconvenience this will cause you and your customer. I’m sorry I’m not the last word and I’m at the mercy of others. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something, “the email said.
The final filing of the PAC on the paper reviewed by CNBC did not include the AT&T logo, but instead mentioned the telecommunications giant by name. The PAC representative said they didn’t have to pay the newspaper to run the ads just yet. She later noted that “this publisher actually requested an advance payment. We gave them our billing information, but they didn’t process it, so no funds were released.”
“AT&T helped fund the anti-abortion politicians who wrote the dangerous law,” said a copy of the final digital ad to be placed on the online version of the Dallas Morning News. The screen shows an image of Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
The ad also urges voters to “tell @ATT that he gets #Offthebanwagon” and urge the company to “stop funding anti-abortion extremists in Texas”. Abbott is up for re-election in 2022 and could run against Beto O’Rourke, who ran for the 2020 Democratic nomination after narrowly losing to Republican Senator Ted Cruz in the 2018 US Senate race in Texas.
An AT&T spokesman told CNBC Monday that the company has never taken a position on abortion and has no plans to change that policy. The representative also said AT&T contributed to campaigns by lawmakers who opposed the bill.
The TV spots targeting AT&T are slated to go on air in both Texas and Florida in the coming days. The Republicans in Florida have introduced an abortion law similar to Texas law.
Texas law allows individuals to sue those who perform abortions in the state. It also gives private individuals the option to sue anyone who supports people who have an abortion. President Joe Biden’s Justice Department sued the state of Texas over the law after the US Supreme Court enacted it last month.
This is the second media company to turn down advertising for AT&T, according to an American Bridge representative. DirecTV also rejected a version of the ad. DirecTV declined in late September, “citing ties to its parent company,” the PAC representative said.
AT&T reached an agreement with the private equity company TPG to spin off its DirecTV, AT&T TV and U-Verse businesses. As part of the agreement, AT&T and TPG have formed a new entity called DirecTV, which will own and operate the company’s DirecTV, AT&T TV and U-verse video services. The Verge reports that AT&T retained a 70% stake in the company.
Corporations have been under pressure to respond to a variety of policy issues in their home states, from laws to access to abortion to those that set standards for voting.
After Georgia state lawmakers passed GOP-backed electoral laws, several companies like Delta and Coca-Cola voiced their opposition. Many of these companies have remained silent about the new anti-abortion law in Texas.
Julie McClain Downey, vice president of strategic communications at American Bridge, blamed AT&T for preventing the ads from running.
“It is deeply disappointing that AT&T has taken such aggressive measures to silence its critics,” said the American Bridge spokeswoman. “For too long, lip service companies have gotten away with empowering women while funding the anti-abortion extremists who drafted this bill, sparking a reproductive health crisis in Texas. The public deserves to hear about AT & T’s hypocrisy and efforts to tell the truth. “
Dallas Morning News and DirecTV representatives did not return requests for comment prior to release.
Online news agency Popular Information reported that AT&T is one of the top funders for state lawmakers that helped fund the Abortion Act. According to the Popular Information report, AT&T has donated more than $ 300,000 to the law’s co-sponsors since 2018.
Feminist group UltraViolet says nearly a dozen main SB 8 sponsors recently received over $ 100,000 from corporate donors, including AT&T.
Popular Information listed CNBC parent company Comcast / NBCUniversal as another corporate donor and said the media company had donated $ 58,250 to SB 8 sponsors since 2018. A person familiar with the matter said the company has also donated over $ 120,000 to campaigns since 2018 by lawmakers who opposed the bill, more than double the donations to lawmakers who backed it. This person declined to be called to speak freely.
American Bridge spent over $ 85 million and raised nearly the same amount during the 2020 presidential election, according to data from the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. More than $ 50 million of that went into targeting former President Donald Trump.
American Bridge’s top donors this cycle include the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a nonprofit dark money group that doesn’t publicly disclose its donors, longtime investors Reid Hoffman and Josh Bekenstein, and legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg, according to CRP data.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.
[ad_1]