House-Senate Midterms Split Emblematic of ‘Very Divided Country,’ Says Shapiro

Shapiro took especially hard the defeat of House Research and Technology Chair Barbara Comstock, R-Va., to Democratic challenger Jennifer Wexton, he said. Comstock, whom CTA’s PAC backed “heavily,” was a “favorite” of the “Washington political community” because she never endorsed President Donald Trump, “and she has a background and expertise in investigations and government procurement,” said Shapiro. “She really knows a lot. She works her butt off, but she got trounced.” Trump Wednesday suggested Comstock and other GOP candidates lost because they refused to "embrace" him or his administration.

CTA sees “pluses and minuses” that the GOP expanded its Senate majority while Democrats took control of the House, and how that might affect the consumer tech industry, said Shapiro. There are “some opportunities” for bipartisan work on issues important to CTA members, he said. But “clearly, we have a very divided country,” he said. Shapiro “can’t imagine two years of just attacking the president, and not doing anything,” he said of the House Democratic majority.

High-skilled immigration overhaul is a possible area of bipartisan cooperation, especially if House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., gets elected speaker, said Shapiro. Pelosi is “very sensitive to the Silicon Valley and San Francisco concerns” on finding high-skilled talent, and “I think there’s a deal to be made there,” he said. There’s also opportunity for bipartisan work in the new Congress on autonomous driving, he said.

Privacy, a “hot issue,” is another area where CTA members hope for bipartisan action (see 1811070053), said Shapiro: “Everybody recognizes that the federal government should do something. Certainly the technology industry is eager to see something done that would set guidelines and rules that they could follow on a national basis, and I don’t think that’s a partisan issue, Republican or Democrat.”

Shapiro hopes Republicans and Democrats “come together on trade, and clearly define the role of the president and the Congress,” he said. Trump “has stretched the trade laws, almost to the breaking point,” he said of tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports. The increase to 25 percent on the third tranche that took effect Sept. 24 “will kick in” automatically on Jan. 1 “unless something happens,” he said. CTA hired Akin Gump to draft a complaint to block the 25 percent tariffs in federal court and is shopping the draft to other associations (see 1810290019).

Congress didn’t anticipate presidents using “retaliation as an excuse” for arbitrarily raising tariffs when it enacted the trade laws, said Shapiro. “Tariffs without question are considered taxes,” and the Constitution gives taxation powers only to the Congress, he said. “That might be an area where Congress will want to reassert its authority.”

Many Republicans and Democrats “are concerned about the impact” of the tariffs, especially after they rise to 25 percent, said Shapiro. “The president has certainly done more in the tariff area than Congress ever thought a president was capable of doing,” he said. “It’s a legitimate area to look at.”

Shapiro doubts impeachment would be “a winning formula” for House Democrats. “I don’t love a lot of what Trump does, but I have never felt that anything he did that I’m aware of, once he was elected, rises to the level of what is considered an impeachable offense,” he said. “People elected him kind of knowing everything he was saying and doing.”

Shapiro buys into speculation Democrats may have lost the Senate because of “partisanship” they showed during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, he said. Democrats “paid the price” for being perceived as treating the now-Supreme Court justice unfairly during the hearings, and that should be a lesson for anyone in the new House majority contemplating an impeachment “platform” next Congress, he said.