Sen John Thune is prairie player in tech world

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) has made himself into an indispensable player in debates over the future of technology policy and its ripple effects around the economy.

His education on technology issues began when he unexpectedly became the committee’s ranking member after then-Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) left the Senate to become the head of the conservative Heritage Foundation. When he became chairman in 2014, Thune said in a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute that lawmakers should work to free up government-owned spectrum — the invisible frequencies that carry signals to mobile devices — for private use. Chairman Thune released a bill to carry through that pledge, though it did not make it out of Congress. He’s found bipartisan ground on a bill to reauthorize the Federal Communications Commission, which would give Congress another chance to weigh in on the goings-on at the agency. That bill, however, also failed to make it through Congress. “He knows the facts, he knows the background, he knows where the policy challenges are and he knows what needs to be done,” said Andy Halataei, senior vice president for government affairs at the Information Technology Industry Council. “And I think the other thing that gives us confidence is the way he conducts the debate is that it’s usually pretty open, transparent, it’s pretty thoughtful and it lends itself to a bipartisan result.” Even some who disagree with Thune sing his praises.