Telecom case appealed to U.S. Supreme Court

A group of people who recently failed to convince the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and the Oklahoma Supreme Court to reopen a long-controversial decision involving Southwestern Bell in 1989 has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the matter.

Oklahomans Against Bribery wants the nation’s highest court to consider whether plaintiffs’ right to petition under the Constitution’s First Amendment was violated when corporation commissioners voted 2 to 1 in 2016 against reopening the old case.

That request had been brought to the commission by a group of customers of the phone company, which since was acquired by AT&T.

The group sought to reopen the case because of subsequent bribery convictions obtained against then Corporation Commissioner Bob Hopkins and William Anderson, an attorney working on behalf of Southwestern Bell at the time.

In the 1989 case, commissioners voted 2 to 1 to accept a negotiated settlement the agency’s staff had reached with Southwestern Bell to reinvest $30 million it had received through a federal corporate tax cut into its network.

The commissioner who voted against that settlement was Bob Anthony. Anthony, who still serves on the commission and remains a vocal critic of the deal, cast a lone vote to reopen the case in 2016.

Hopkins and Anderson, both deceased, served time in federal prison after their convictions. Anthony, meanwhile, remains a vocal critic of the 1989 decision, citing both the bribery issue and questioning whether the company accurately informed the commission about how much money it received through the federal tax cut.

That 1989 corporation commission decision, which the agency’s elected commissioners have considered reopening at least twice, has been litigated ever since.

In the 2016 attempt to convince the commission to reopen the case, the group contended Oklahoma consumers are owed more than $16 billion, including interest, from a refund they should have received through the federal tax cut.

They appealed the commission’s vote to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which turned away their request to force the commission to reopen the case.

AT&T, meanwhile, has maintained that Southwestern Bell honored the settlement it reached with the commission in 1989 to invest the tax refund money to upgrade its network.

On Thursday, a spokesman stated, “at least seven times over the last 25 years, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission and the Oklahoma Supreme Court have consistently found no compelling basis — legal or otherwise — to reopen this case.

“We continue to look forward to it being finally put to rest, once and for all.”

Petition announcement and plaintiffs

In a news release announcing the U.S. Supreme Court petition, plaintiffs said they remain concerned that their assertions have not been addressed.

“We took on this fight when the Attorney General stopped representing Oklahoma ratepayers and started defending AT&T,” Nichols Hills Mayor Sody Clements, a plaintiff, stated in the release.

“We hoped the Corporation Commission and the Oklahoma Supreme Court would finally do the right thing — declare once and for all that bribed votes don’t count in this state — and give the billions stolen by AT&T back to the ratepayers.

“Unfortunately, everyone has passed the buck and claimed it’s someone else’s problem to fix. We believe the buck will stop at the United States Supreme Court.”

Petition backers also have created a website, OklahomansAgainstBribery.org, that explains the case and its history in layman’s terms and offers links to various court filings.

Besides Clements, other plaintiffs in the case before the Supreme Court include retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Richard A. Burpee, a former commander of the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker Air Force Base, Bob Ricks, former special agent in charge of the FBI in Oklahoma, and Rodd Moesel, a horticulturalist who is president of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau.

“Denying citizens the right to further petition their legislative bodies on legislative matters — especially matters involving proven public corruption — threatens and undermines our very republican form of government,” the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court argues. “The high importance of this case to the public interest, both from a monetary standpoint and from the standpoint of harm done — now and in the future — to ‘the good order of society,’ warrants review.”

If the high court agrees, it could send the case back to the Oklahoma Supreme Court for further review, petition backers said.

They hope the court will hear the case this year.