t Actions Took Shape The Justice Department filed a new antitrust suit against AT&T in 1974, and as competition in long distance took root in the late 1970s, a number of private antitrust suits were also filed against AT&T. These suits were consolidated under Judge Harold Greene in 1978 [5]. At this point any number of issues could have been brought to the table. AT&T wanted relief from some of the FJ restrictions, but it was largely on the defensive. Its chief, John deButts, had been attempting to make a last stand against competition, but that position was col- lapsing on multiple fronts. Congress had been considering its own options. In 1976, at the behest of a friend from an independent telephone company, Rep. Teno Roncalio (D-Wyo.) filed the Consumer Communications Reform Act, better known as the "Bell Bill." [6]. It would have declared local and long distance telephone service to be a monopoly utility, shutting down MCI and other new competitors in their tracks, and it would have returned control of terminal equipment to the states, allowing them to shut down "interconnect." The goal was ostensibly to preserve the cross-subsidies needed for universal service. But while the bill at one point had 200 co-sponsors, and AT&T had sent an army of lobbyists to push it, the bill's initial support dried up rapidly and it failed to carry. Congress became a pro-competitive force instead. A 1979 bill filed by Rep. Lionel Van Deerlin, The Great Telecom Meltdown chairman of the Communications and Power Subcommittee of the House Commerce Committee, would have separated Western Electric from AT&T, mandated interconnection for competitive carriers, and created an explicit uni- versal service fund [7]. Although it would have voided the FJ and allowed AT&T to enter new lines of business, the company opposed it, and it was stalled in committee. By 1981, AT&T's position appeared to be weakening, as the chairmen of both houses' Congressional committees that oversaw telecommunications were in the hands of competition advocates, Re