Trump Transition Team Makes First Foray Into Telecom, Tech Industry Outreach

Those there included people at tech and other companies, their trade associations and/or lobbyists. BSA|The Software Alliance, CTA, the Internet Association, Information Technology Industry Council, Software and Information Industry Association, TechNet, MPAA and NCTA appeared to have sent participants, industry officials said. The campaign itself didn't comment Friday.

Transition team Policy Implementation Director Ado Machida and Finance Director Cam Henderson were among the principals at the meeting, attendees said. Former Rep. Mike Ferguson, R-N.J., now with BakerHostetler, also attended, they said. Staffers said they were collecting private-sector feedback on presidential appointments, agencies’ actions, policy priorities and planning for pre-inauguration actions, industry officials said. Though money wasn't specifically sought and attendees didn't need to contribute to the campaign to attend, one participant said he had donated to the campaign and donation information was available at the meeting, participants said.

Attendees raised a wide range of issues, including the need for surveillance and privacy reforms such as an update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, industry officials said. Some attendees specifically said “there needs to be more than one agency,” beyond DOJ, “involved and driving policy” since “the issues are much larger and cross many government agencies,” one official said. Other attendees pushed for fixes to federal IT policies and emphasized the importance of chief information officers and chief technology officers within agencies to improve federal government cybersecurity, the official said.

Other issues included the importance of digital trade and cross-border data flows, IoT matters, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, officials said. Some executives highlighted the importance of entertainment industries and the “high burdens” of federal regulation, a participant said. Staff indicated a Trump administration “plans to do a full regulatory assessment of regulations to undo on day one,” one attendee said. There appeared to be “no desire” to address immigration or the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the attendee said.

SRO Crowd of 60-70

Attendees said as many as 60 or 70 people attended the meeting, crowding around a large table in a conference room at the law firm. The discussion had two parts, many said.

In the first part, transition team members discussed how they're dividing up their work between now and the election and between Election Day and the inauguration, said participants. Members of the transition team said time will be short, with only 73 days between Election Day and Jan. 20. Members of the transition team discussed the prioritization of appointments, agency actions, policy implementation and “what has to happen and in what order in those 73 days,” said a telecom official. The second part was a listening session.

A technology representative who participated said the transition team focused more on process such as Day 1 or Day 100 activities for a Trump presidency than a wide-ranging discussion about technology policy. During the first half of the meeting, Rich Bagger, transition executive director and a former New Jersey state lawmaker, talked about having landing teams after the election to assess what agencies and departments are doing and if anybody is interested in working or volunteering, the participant said. But the team didn’t cite any specific agencies or personnel, attendees said. Bagger also outlined what the transition team is allowed to do by law and that it’s assembling teams and coordinating on policy, the participant said. The team’s presentation could have been given to anybody, the participant added.

Leaders of the transition team then “went around the room two times to sort of say, ‘Here’s your nickel, what do you want to tell us and what do you think we should be thinking about,’” the telecom official said. Protection of intellectual property, the need for better federal use of technology and federal procurement reform were the big topics mentioned repeatedly by industry attendees, the official said.

'Better Late Than Never'

​The gathering was believed to be the first major outreach since a Republican National Committee summer meeting with telecom and tech stakeholders that featured upward of 75 people.

“I suppose better late than never,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May, noting sparse campaign engagement on these issues so far. “To be candid, if the transition team is serious about developing sound communications policy position, they need to meet with more than just industry folks, who quite naturally, emphasize their own more parochial issues. They also need to meet with academics, think tankers, economists, and others with experience and expertise in the area and broad perspectives.”

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign is seen as heavily engaged with these policy areas, some stakeholders said. Clinton, unlike Trump, unveiled a detailed telecom and tech agenda in June. Her campaign mentioned a desired FCC role over forced arbitration earlier this month (see 1610030039).

Among the Trump transition team officials, “the person driving all the work" is Bagger, said Clay Johnson, who led the transition effort for former President George W. Bush and spoke at the National Press Club alongside transition experts Sept. 30. Johnson said transition planning typically begins around April and May, with hundreds of people involved by this stage of the campaign. President Barack Obama and his 2008 GOP challenger Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., “got the message” during their campaigns, and 2012 Republican contender Mitt Romney's transition effort was the “poster child," Johnson said.

Andrew Bremberg, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and a policy director for the RNC platform committee this year, is the transition team member who initially sent invitations to Washington-area stakeholders. One communications industry official told us the presence of Bremberg and other transition team members like Eric Ueland, Republican staff director for the Senate Budget Committee, is reassuring. Bremberg and Ueland are known for their policy chops, if not necessarily tech and telecom policy, the official said.

“Both of the transition teams have been fully engaged,” said Mack McLarty, chief of staff for former President Bill Clinton and also involved in transition planning, during the same event as Johnson. Discretion is “perfectly appropriate,” McLarty added. “It is a critical period.” McLarty and Johnson are on the advisory board for the Center for Presidential Transition, part of the Partnership for Public Service. Its CEO Max Stier emphasized the transition money is “tiny” compared with what goes into campaign war chests, a sum of little more than $10 million to help assemble plans for the 4,000 personnel that need to be a part of a new administration, with 400 requiring Senate confirmation. “The reality is again that it’s a scramble,” Stier said.

"As for substance, I would hope the Trump transition team -- or Clinton’s, for that matter -- would formulate a principled deregulatory approach going forward that incorporates some fundamental points that dictate a new direction,” May said. “There needs to be a recognition -- [which] of necessity will require an updated Communications Act -- that the default position should be to rely on market competition, not regulation, to enhance consumer welfare.”