112th Congress: New Line-Up, New Players - New Priorities?

January is over, and the House and Senate Committees that oversee telecom issues have officially organized ­ issuing full lists of members, deciding on the rules by which the committees will work, and dividing up the budgets between Democrats and Republicans (thus setting the tone for how well the parties will work together in the 112th Congress). So what will the legislative priorities of these committees be?

The two themes of love and money ­ constituent votes and budget issues ­ that we identified in an earlier post still dominate. However, now that we know who all of the players are, including the subcommittee chairs, we can take these policymakers’ legislative pasts into account, and perhaps identify which specific bills we should see introduced in the coming months. The biggest changes from last Congress are on the House side, where the agenda will be determined by Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI-6th) and the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet Greg Walden (R-OR-2nd) and Lee Terry (R-NE-2nd). The new Chair of Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Cliff Stearns (R-FL-6th) will have a strong impact on the Committee’s telecom policy too, since he served as the Communications Subcommittee’s Ranking Member last Congress. Chairman Upton enjoys a reputation as solid, pro-business Congressman who is reasonable to deal with. He has chosen to hire former Ranking Member Joe Barton’s (R-TX-6th) well-respected telecom aide, Neil Fried, as his Chief Counsel for telecom matters which gives his staff bench the depth and institutional memory critical for real legislative negotiations.