Snowe Departure Opens Door for FCC Critic DeMint to Take Senate Commerce
If Republicans gain control of the Senate, free-market hero Jim DeMint could lead the Senate Commerce Committee after the unexpected announcement Tuesday that Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, will not seek re-election (CD Feb 29 p14). DeMint, a Republican senator from South Carolina and the ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee, is next in line by seniority to replace retiring Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. DeMint is a staunch conservative and tea party favorite who marks a sharp contrast to the moderate Snowe.
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"Senator DeMint is focused on electing conservatives to the Senate to ensure it’s a chairmanship, not a ranking position,” his spokesman told us by email. “If Republicans win back control of Congress and the White House, the Commerce Committee will play a critical role in reforming Washington’s out of control bureaucracy and actually promoting commerce and free markets."
DeMint favors deregulation and free-market policy. Last year, he introduced a bill to deregulate the TV market (S-2008), supported by anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist. He has been an ardent opponent of the FCC’s net neutrality decision and co-sponsored the Senate’s failed resolution of disapproval. He also voted against S-911, a bill to build a nationwide interoperable wireless public safety broadband network, in committee markup last year because he said it cost too much. In addition, DeMint introduced a bill to cut off funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (S-492). DeMint opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act in the House and Senate.
"The FCC is clearly a threat” to the free market, DeMint said last year at a Free State Foundation event (CD Oct 13 p4). He added that he hopes to “shame” the commission into stop making new regulations. DeMint introduced a bill in 2010 and in 2005 to limit new FCC regulations, but failed to move it through the Senate.
Snowe is a moderate who worked frequently with Democrats on telecom legislation. This Congress, she cosponsored a spectrum bill (S-455) with Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., and a bill to add engineers to FCC commissioner staffs (S-611) with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
The Free State Foundation would “enthusiastically welcome Senator DeMint’s ascension to the top spot on the Commerce Committee,” FSF President Randolph May said. “Probably more than anyone else in the Senate, Sen. DeMint understands that market and technological changes require a new law that replaces the current ‘public interest’ and silo-based regulatory paradigm with a competition-based model. He doesn’t just want to tinker around the edges."
The next three GOP senators in order of seniority after DeMint are John Thune, S.D., Roger Wicker, Miss., and Johnny Isakson, Ga.