Split Houses May Mean Telecom Bills Take Longer, But Still Pass
Split control of Congress may mean it takes longer for some telecom legislation to pass, but if the past is precedent, bills still will be approved, industry officials said. With Republicans taking over the House and Democrats keeping their majority in the Senate, the initial focus will be on budget issues, they said. House Commerce Committee members initially will try to undo health care and energy legislation championed by the administration and passed in the 111th Congress, some said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Energy and health care are key for committee Republicans since the incoming freshman members of that party “have run on stopping the president’s agenda on both issues,” said Glover Park Group Managing Director Gregg Rothschild. With that and aggressive oversight of the administration of President Barack Obama, “I don’t know how much oxygen that leaves left for the telecom space,” said the former chief counsel of the committee under the chairmanship of John Dingell, D-Mich. “Historically, major telecom legislation passes when the Senate goes first,” as occurred with the 1996 Telecom Act, Rothschild said.
The last divided Congress was from 2001 to 2003, when Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the Republican Party to become an independent, shifting the balance of power to Democrats. Republicans regained control after the 2002 election. The divided Congress managed to act on a number of issues of interest to the communications industry, including the 2002 Farm Bill, which provided loans for broadband buildout, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which mandated enhanced standards for corporate boards and for corporate reports in the aftermath of WorldCom and other corporate failures. That Congress also created the Department of Homeland Security and took an ultimately unsuccessful run at rewriting the Telecom Act.
"No question that a divided Congress will lead to some schisms,” said communications lawyer Andrew Lipman of Bingham McCutchen. That “will slow things down and make enacting legislation more difficult,” he said. “Comprehensive telecom legislation is unlikely."
"I think it’s going to be a difficult couple of years,” said President Gary Shapiro of the CEA. “Republicans have to have learned their lesson and it will be proven that they can cut” spending, he said. “This will be a Congress that is good for innovation” in “an environment that will be pro-business,” Shapiro continued: “And that’s what a lot of Republicans” seek.