Posted on 11/18/2002 5:55:44 AM PST by Theodore R.
No one trusts a traitor.
Still, we need to win Louisiana. Conservatives throughout the country have to get involved.
Rebel McCain back in Commerce saddle
'Straight shooter' has several aims
By Anne C. Mulkern Denver Post Washington Bureau
Friday, November 15, 2002 - WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John McCain is rushing to a celebratory luncheon days after Republicans regained control of Congress when a throng of reporters surges forward.
The Arizona lawmaker and former presidential hopeful proffers a look of faux surprise as the questions come rapid fire: “Will you eliminate Amtrak subsidies?” “Will you let airports miss the deadline for luggage screening?” “What telephone regulations do you want to change?”
McCain smiles and pivots toward the group, holding court for a few minutes. Nov. 5’s election results put him back in charge of a key Senate committee that oversees issues affecting telephone companies, cable television, airlines, trains, tourism and a host of other industries. Decisions the committee makes potentially affect, among others, Denver-based Qwest Communications International, Level 3 Communications, United Airlines and Lockheed Martin.
It’s clear McCain’s eager to be back in charge, after 18 months as a minority voice. What’s not yet clear is what his leadership on the Senate Commerce Committee will mean for businesses and consumers. An avowed free-market advocate, McCain is likely to push for further deregulation of telecommunications and other governed industries. But he also fights to protect consumers and competition, even when that bumps up against free-market philosophies.
“If you went through the list of 100 senators, there would be no one more unpredictable than John McCain,” said Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “He’s a populist. He’s going to pick issues that have a lot of popular appeal.”
McCain, 66, will undoubtedly be more business friendly than his predecessor, South Carolina Democrat Fritz Hollings, 80, a self-described “born-again regulator.” But McCain, who’s referred to as “maverick John McCain” so often one might think it’s his given name, is unlikely to be a clear-cut corporate advocate.
The Republican is known to butt heads with his party on significant issues. Each year, he stands in the Senate chambers and castigates spending on local community pet projects he calls “pork barrel” politics. He’s one of two lawmakers who authored campaign finance reform, ending a type of contribution business interests used heavily, mainly to support Republicans. He’s also headed investigations into corporate corruption.
That iconoclastic approach has generated some behind-the-scenes ire among fellow politicians.
“John McCain got away with being the ‘Straight Talk Express,’” outgoing U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said last week, referring to the nickname of McCain’s failed 2000 presidential bid. “If that was straight talk, John Wayne should be rolling in his grave. We are so hungry for anything we can believe might be straight talk that we even bought in to John McCain.”
That public criticism of McCain is something hard to find these days. With McCain re-ascending to a position of some power, most are hesitant to criticize and quick to praise, offering the popular: “We look forward to working with Senator McCain as chairman of the committee.”
McCain had been chairman of Senate Commerce from 1997 until May 2001, when Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched allegiance from the Republican Party, swinging power to the Democrats. Commerce Committee chairmanship then flipped to Hollings, who authored the 1996 telecommunications act and has fought to protect telephone industry regulations. Hollings also opposed the Federal Communications Commission’s new push to eliminate rules barring media companies from merging. And he’s fought to protect Amtrak from folding.
McCain is likely to revisit all those issues and more, with a far more deregulatory bent. He said he has not been happy with the direction of the committee over the 18 months.
“I just have a little different philosophy about government,” McCain said, comparing his politics to Hollings’. “I think one of our differences would have been on regulation.”
McCain said he’s developing a list of new priorities for the committee but is not ready to make it public.
“A lot of us didn’t anticipate that I would be the chairman quite this soon,” he said, somewhat wryly.
Those familiar with McCain say he’s likely to look at government subsidies for Amtrak, rules governing mergers by media companies, funding mechanisms for the Federal Aviation Administration and cable monopolies, which he has criticized. He’s also pushed for free time for political commercials, to make campaigns less dependent of political contributions.
“I think you’re going to see an activist John McCain,” said Mark Buse, who worked for McCain for 18 years and now works as a private industry lobbyist on telecommunications and aviation issues. “Senator McCain, I believe, will use the committee’s resources to launch some more thorough investigations on issues of the day.”
One area he’s sure to target, however, is the set of regulations governing phone companies such as Qwest.
“The whole (1996) Telecommunications Act was a disaster. Everybody realizes it,” McCain said in an interview last week. “We need to review that.”
Under that law, local phone companies that want to sell long-distance must open their local monopolies to competitors. Qwest and others say that has quelled their interest in building infrastructure to expand the availability of high-speed Internet service because they’d have to make that infrastructure available to competitors. McCain, in legislation earlier this year, proposed exempting residential broadband service from that portion of the law, to encourage investment in expansion.
“I think Senator McCain put that (legislation) down as sort of a marker, and a discussion piece,” said Robert McDowell, vice president of the Competitive Telecommunications Association, a trade group for smaller companies that compete with Qwest and other regional phone companies.
Phone companies are among the biggest contributors to McCain’s re-election efforts, with Qwest and its predecessor US West giving the most of any business over the past five years. But that won’t guarantee phone companies favorable policy. McCain is known to chew up and spit out the hand that feeds him. While previously chairman of the Commerce Committee, he helped scuttle the attempted merger of United Airlines and US Airways because he feared it would trigger more consolidation in the airline industry.
“He’s going to see to it that the consumer wins. To the extent big business is at cross purposes (to that), they don’t get what they want,” said John Timmons, who worked for McCain for 10 years and now lobbies for private industry, including the Competitive Telecommunications Association.
McCain’s chairmanship of the Commerce Committee is likely to influence what happens at the FCC, which next year begins an in-depth review of phone company regulations. McCain shepherded FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s ascension and is likely to work closely with Powell on regulatory issues. Powell is also an avowed deregulator.
“I think he’ll come up with a rather aggressive agenda working with Mike Powell and the FCC that we’ll see next year,” Buse said.
Hollings, in contrast, used the Commerce chairmanship, and his position on the Appropriations Committee, to try to block FCC attempts to lessen telecommunications regulation.
“The FCC probably will feel like it doesn’t have someone breathing down its neck,” said David Butler, spokesman for Consumers Union, which is concerned that deregulation of phones could hurt consumers. “Given Senator McCain’s relationship with the FCC and its chairman, it’s unlikely he’ll be as tough as Senator Hollings.”
Hollings declined to comment when asked last week what he would do to preserve the Telecommunications Act.
Cut me a break. The guy is a rabidly anti-Second Amendment RINO. Interestin' political ploy to attach the word "shooter" to a man who wants to take away all of our guns.
"If you went through the list of 100 senators, there would be no one more unpredictable than John McCain," said Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "He’s a populist. He’s going to pick issues that have a lot of popular appeal."
Sure. As if running your career strictly by the polls and having teams of aides constantly holding a finger to the political wind is't predictable. Sabato's dreaming. Guess he missed the Clinton years.
I think that by 2008, there would be garbage truck load of Democrats wanting to run for president who would be unwilling to get out of the way for an interloper. Especially one who would potentially hog the scene until 2016.
The Dems haven't been elected into the majority for a decade and judging by their party's standard bearers it doesn't seem to likely to happen in the next decade either.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.