Planning Underway for House Democrat-Led Forums To Craft Innovation Agenda 2.0
House Democrats want this election year to feature development of an Innovation Agenda 2.0, a set of policy priorities that include telecom issues, senior Democrats from the chamber’s caucus said this month. They announced the revival of the decade-old initiative quietly over the past several weeks, with few concrete steps outlined yet but planning for stakeholder forums underway. The agenda’s revival is a long-running priority for Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who's emerging as a key leader in shaping these priorities.
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“The U.S. needs to double down,” Eshoo said Friday in a newsletter from her office. “Sustaining our successes and adding to them requires a collaborative effort by all of us. It’s time we in Washington pursue this with another Innovation Agenda … this time 2.0, and it’s just what I plan to do. Stay tuned!”
Democratic aides told us the initiative’s in a “listening phase” with no set timeline, speaking after a Jan. 4 event in Silicon Valley featuring Eshoo, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew (see 1601050043). “Dem Innovation Agenda 2.0 will build on policies crucial to a stronger, more competitive America,” Pelosi tweeted then, using the hashtag #InnovationNation. Eshoo and Pelosi are widely seen as close, with Pelosi repeatedly backing Eshoo's unsuccessful bid to lead the Commerce Committee in 2014. In the audience were lawmakers from around the Bay Area, all Democrats: Reps. Mark DeSaulnier, Jared Huffman, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren and Jerry McNerney. Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., also intended to attend but was not feeling well.
“The listening phase includes forums around the country seeking advice from industry leaders and entrepreneurs, which are currently being planned,” a Democratic House leadership aide told us Tuesday.
Despite Washington-area snow postponing House activity for the week, the chamber’s Democrats plan to gather Wednesday and Thursday for a summit in Baltimore to plan legislative priorities for the year. “The theme of the issues conference is ‘United for Opportunity’ -- and an Innovation Agenda 2.0 is crucial to expanding opportunity for all,” the Democratic leadership aide said when asked about how such an agenda may factor into this week’s Baltimore meeting. An Eshoo spokesman confirmed she wouldn't join Democrats at the retreat. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met privately Tuesday with Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., “to discuss legislative priorities for the coming months in advance of the House Democratic Issues Conference later in the week,” the White House said. House Democrats are in the minority, holding 188 seats vs. Republicans’ 246.
The House Democrats’ original innovation agenda was launched by Pelosi, Eshoo and others in November 2005 and was touted throughout subsequent years, much to the scorn of then-Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. The agenda sought to “guarantee affordable access to broadband technology for all Americans” within five years. The priorities then included ensuring a stable regulatory environment and “a national broadband policy that doubles federal funding to promote broadband for all Americans, especially in rural and underserved communities" and creating "new avenues of Internet access including wireless broadband technologies, broadband over power lines, and affordable community-based options.” It included support for “a broadband tax credit for telecommunications companies that deploy broadband in rural and underserved parts of America.” The agenda also resulted in the America Competes Act, focusing on R&D and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007 and reauthorized in another law signed by Obama in 2011.
“The way things are in Congress right now, passing major tech legislation will be hard unless it's part of a must-pass bill,” said Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant. “So I think Pelosi and Eshoo want to make innovation part of Democrats' 2016 platform while laying the groundwork for getting something done as soon as the political stars start aligning.”
“This kind of bold vision is deeply welcomed by Silicon Valley technology leaders,” former FCC Commissioner Rachelle Chong, now a telecom attorney in the Bay Area and recently interim general counsel for the firm Sidecar, told us. “It properly focuses on what Congress can do to help develop STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] education, promote well paying tech jobs for Americans and establish measurable goals.” She called such an agenda’s development significant and said the key is whether other tech-friendly Democrats sign on and whether any legislation growing out of it proves “viable,” arguing the underlying issues aren’t inherently partisan: “Democrats need to be seen as enablers of the future.” She wondered how the agenda may shape legislation and whether the group will pursue strong principles. “Look to see which companies endorse this call," she recommended.
The agenda revamp “seems like a good opportunity for Congress to further engage with the tech community outside of D.C. -- even if it doesn't translate to enacted legislation any time soon,” said New America Open Technology Institute Policy Counsel Josh Stager. “This is also the sort of thing that could find its way into the Democratic party platform, which will be drafted and adopted this summer in Philadelphia.”
“Democrats, of course, want to cloak themselves as the innovation party, particularly as they try to keep the White House and try to become the majority again in the House and Senate,” San Jose Mercury News tech columnist Michelle Quinn wrote of the initiative following its announcement. “But efforts like the one Eshoo is launching tend to be the quiet, low-profile work that spans White House administrations. Away from the noise of the presidential debates and news cycles, they establish a foundation of knowledge that is eventually shaped into legislation and policy tweaks that mean a lot to those affected.”
Eshoo has eyed reviving the agenda for years. “What I’d like to do in the next Congress, God-willing that I’m part of the Congress, is to update the innovation agenda, to go back and review not only what we accomplished but where we need to build,” Eshoo said during a September 2014 event hosted by The Atlantic.
In last week’s newsletter, Eshoo claimed victories. “Policies in the original Innovation Agenda have also expanded the deployment of broadband,” she said. “But our world continues to change and so must we to shape our collective future.” In recent months, Eshoo has aligned with subcommittee Republican colleagues on several pieces of broadband deployment legislation, except in cases where legislation involves the FCC net neutrality order. In her newsletter update, she unveiled statistics to “help to paint a picture of the state of our innovation economy, where we’re lacking, and where we can excel.” Her concerns involved everything from patent system overhaul to a need for IT skills and R&D investment.
“According to the [FCC], 34 million Americans, or approximately 10 percent of our country, still lack access to fixed broadband at speeds necessary to leverage today’s online services,” Eshoo said. “Taken together, these facts require us to act.”