Maryland Delegate Lawton Dies, Police Claim "Natural Causes"

Maryland Delegate Jane Lawton left her Montgomery County home this morning prepared to do battle with the cable companies as a speaker at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division's 2007 Telecommunications Symposium . Jane planned on talking to her audience about local government's constraints on competition in the cable television market and how that's being changed by telephone companies - i.e., she was weighing in on the Comcast - Verizon FiOS wars currently being waged in suburbia.

After giving her speech at this open forum, which undoubtedly included "representatives" of the cable industry, she dropped dead . The police are claiming that Jane had a heart attack, but Wonkette finds the timing too suspicious to believe that. RIP, Jane. You were probably a really nice lady and I really like my FiOS. [ DOJ , Washington Post ]