Lawmakers, Tech Groups Optimistic at Prospect of Judiciary Chairman Goodlatte

House Republicans are projected to gain or retain enough seats Tuesday to preserve their control of the House. If they succeed in keeping the House, current Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, will pass on the gavel to another Republican. GOP chairmanships are selected through a process that combines seniority and six-year term limits that factor in time spent as ranking member and chairman. Smith reached his term limit this year after being chairman for two years and ranking member the previous four years, a committee spokeswoman said.

To become Judiciary chairman, Goodlatte must first win Virginia’s sixth congressional district race against Andy Schmookler, a Democratic author and political commentator with scant telecom experience, and then be selected by the House Republican Steering Committee. The Cook and Rothenberg nonpartisan political reports rate the race as a solid and safe Republican seat, respectively. “This is what we would call a very solid Republican district,” said Jessica Taylor, a senior analyst with the Rothenberg Political Report. “Goodlatte has a huge financial lead.” Cook Political Report analyst David Wasserman said Goodlatte occupies “the most bedrock Republican district in the state.”

Goodlatte is said to be the likely pick, despite being the fourth-most-senior Republican on the committee after Smith. Spokesmen for Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin and North Carolina’s Howard Coble said neither congressman who ranks ahead of Goodlatte in seniority on Judiciary is seeking the chair. Elton Gallegly of California didn’t seek reelection this year. Goodlatte chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, is chairman of the House Republican Tech Working Group and is co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus. He has a veteran staff of telecom advisers including Chief of Staff Shelley Hanger Husband; Nick Chadkewicz, senior legislative assistant; and Legislative Director Branden Ritchie.

Smith described Goodlatte as “one of the smartest members of Congress I know,” in an email. “This Congress, as Chairman of the IP Subcommittee, he played a key role in helping to enact major patent reform legislation that updates our patent system and encourages innovation. And his bill to eliminate the diversity visa lottery was included in bipartisan legislation to help high-tech companies hire qualified foreign graduates of U.S. universities with advanced” science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) degrees, he said.

"Bob is the kind of guy that could really marshal and shepherd the buy-in from the stakeholders in the high tech community whenever he looks at legislation that could get into that arena,” said Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas. He worked with Goodlatte on the House Republican Technology Working Group. “We meet with some pretty powerful CEOs of high tech companies, and he has a good stroke with them in terms of his relationship and how he handles them,” McCaul said. “He has been one of those guys that are respected on both sides of the aisle, which is important. He’s not a bomb thrower -- if you will -- type personality, and I think he has worked very effectively across the aisle. I think that’s going to be important in the next Congress if we want to get anything done."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., enjoyed working with Goodlatte over the years, despite being on opposing sides of some issues, Leahy said by email. “We have worked together on intellectual property, privacy and technology issues as leaders of the bipartisan Congressional Internet Caucus, where we have advocated for a free and open Internet, and we worked together to close a significant loophole in the nation’s copyright law with the passage of the No Electronic Theft Act in 1997. I have appreciated Congressman Goodlatte’s support of the Faster FOIA Act and the Justice for All Act, two of my top priorities, and if he is reelected on November 6th, I look forward to working with the Congressman on these and other issues in the new Congress.”

Goodlatte’s experience as IP Subcommittee chairman “will be a big boost” if he becomes chair of the full committee, said outgoing subcommittee Vice Chairman Ben Quayle, R-Ariz. “A lot of the issues that are going to come up before the Judiciary Committee would have come up through that subcommittee … so he will have already started the process of talking to people on these issues and will hit the ground running,” said Quayle. “He would be a very effective chairman if he were to get that post.”

Ex-Democratic House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher said Goodlatte is an “extraordinarily able” legislator. “He will make an outstanding chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and his ascendancy to that position is good news for the technology industry,” Boucher, who co-chaired the Congressional Internet Caucus with Goodlatte for a decade, told us. “He has established a deep knowledge that attends information technology and he will make informed decisions and share his knowledge of these matters with others who will be joining with him and making decisions. And that has to be good news for industry where an informed decision is always a desirable outcome.”

Goodlatte’s leadership style will be a departure from Smith’s, telecom lawyers and lobbyists said. They noted that Smith’s two-year tenure as chairman didn’t appease the concerns of Democrats, consumer groups and many owners of websites like Google as he aspired to pass legislation to curb online piracy. Smith authored the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which collapsed in a committee markup session after Wikipedia, Craigslist and thousands of other sites blacked out their homepages in a coordinated protest of the bill (CD Jan 19 p5). Goodlatte has a substantive understanding of technology and telecom issues, he’s cautious to court stakeholders before drafting legislation, and can reach across the aisle to develop consensus agreements, said lawmakers and lobbyists. “Congressman Goodlatte has a long history of engagement of the technology sector,” said GOP lobbyist Norm Lent of Dow Lohnes Government Strategies. “As one of the co-chairs of the House Internet Caucus, Congressman Goodlatte has a track record of working across party lines on tech issues and will be productive Judiciary chairman."

If the stars align for a Goodlatte chairmanship, he would oversee the committee during a critical time for telecom legislation. If cybersecurity legislation isn’t passed in the lame-duck session, the issue is predicted to remain a priority next Congress, which also will look at telecom reform, and the committee will endeavor to pass a reauthorization bill to extend the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act. STELA expires Dec. 31, 2014. The Senate and House Judiciary committees share jurisdiction with the Commerce committees over STELA, which could potentially become a vehicle to update other cable laws, industry sources said.

In the short term, the technology community is looking for Congress to pass the STEM Jobs Act (HR-6429) as a way to help companies recruit and hire foreign graduates of U.S. universities who excel in technology fields. Goodlatte co-sponsored Smith’s bill in the 112th Congress and industry sources told us House leadership plans to bring up the bill under regular order during the lame-duck session of Congress. If that effort fails, industry proponents of the bill expect House Judiciary to take up the legislation next session. A spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., declined to comment on any lame-duck legislation plans.

Goodlatte could take up the fight against online piracy next Congress, albeit in a way that seeks to address the concerns of technology stakeholders, lobbyists said. Goodlatte said at the beginning of the 112th Congress that one of his biggest priorities would be to combat online piracy with enhanced criminal laws (CD May 5/11 p5). He was a SOPA supporter who continued to advocate for the bill even after his Republican co-sponsors dropped like flies in the face of Internet blackouts. Quayle said if Goodlatte decides to craft a new antipiracy bill, his colleague will be sure to include all stakeholders at the negotiating table.

Goodlatte may also seek to reform the aging Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), industry sources said. In the 112th Congress, Goodlatte authored a bill aimed at modernizing video privacy rules that passed the House but has since been mired in Senate Judiciary (CD Sept 21 p9). HR-2471 aims to amend the VPPA to permit “video tape service providers” to obtain a consumer’s informed written consent on an ongoing basis via the Internet. The Netflix-backed bill could have tremendous implications for online video streaming sites that seek greater integration with social networks, but leaders in the Senate have been unable to come to an agreement over the legislation.

Goodlatte has the “intellect and the support behind him to actually do something in this next Congress,” said Amy Mehlman, a Republican telecom lobbyist at Mehlman Capitol Strategies. His facility with technical details on telecom issues and his willingness to listen to the concerns of his Democratic colleagues will serve him well as chairman, she said. “There is an old saying that partisanship should stop at technology’s edge,” said Mehlman. “I think it’s very true that these aren’t partisan issues and should not be partisan issues.” So the key to garnering support is “getting into the nitty gritty” of these issues, she said.