AT&T officials acknowledged Monday that they failed to report a $25,000 contribution to Real PAC, a big-money fund set up by friends of Gov. Nathan Deal to push his agenda as he heads into his re-election year.
Company officials filed an amended report showing the contribution, one of three the company made to the fund over a little more than a year. AT&T donated a total of $75,000 to Real PAC, making it the fund’s largest single donor among those that have reported contributions.
Because Real PAC is a political action committee, the companies, lobbying organizations and individuals have been able to write checks up to $50,000, three times what they could legally give Deal’s re-election campaign directly. The fund raised at least $484,000, mostly from contributions above the campaign limit.
Sage Rhodes, spokeswoman for the company, said an “unintended administrative error” led to the contribution not being initially disclosed. She said the company reviewed its records and realized the error after reading about Real PAC last week in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Real PAC has not filed a disclosure report since January 2012. However, the AJC pieced together a list of donors from expenditure reports filed by companies and PACs, almost all of which do business with the state or have keen interest in Capitol legislation.
AT&T was one of the companies pushing legislation this year to limit the time local governments have to decide whether to allow new cell-phone towers. Local government officials said the legislation, which didn’t pass during the 2013 session, would also have limited their ability to regulate cell towers already in place.
The money Real PAC raised is paying for an advertising campaign backing the Republican agenda. The ads are expected to begin running in September.
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