Considering their down-home backgrounds, it might seem unlikely that three Virginia congressmen are on the cutting edge of national high-tech and telecommunications legislation. After all, one is a funeral director from Richmond; another a lawyer from the remote mountains near Abingdon; the third, a Massachusetts transplant who settled in Roanoke. Two are Republicans and one is a Democrat. None is especially glitzy.

Left to right: Congressmen Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; Tom Bliley, R-Va.; and Rick Boucher, D-Va. Photo by Mark Abraham

Even so, U.S. Reps. Thomas J. Bliley Jr., Rick Boucher and Robert W. Goodlatte make up an unusually powerful high-tech bloc in Congress. They’ve helped open the telecom industry to competition, viciously fought Internet taxation and given the Net new heft by giving e-mail messages legal force. Not only are they transforming national policy to make telecom regulations friendlier to the industry, they are helping advance the economies and lifestyles of Virginia’s smallest towns and cities. "They’ve been visionary and really, truly global in their visions," says Lisa Nelson, a Capitol Hill lobbyist for Dulles-based America Online. "They’ve thought about what’s good for the country and the world, not just from a parochial standpoint."

Key to their influence is their roles on the House Commerce and Judiciary committees, where as much as three-quarters of high-tech legislation is written. While every congressional committee deals with some aspect of high-tech policy these days — from filing tax returns online to how the FBI monitors e-mail — Commerce and Judiciary have the lion’s share. Bliley, Boucher and Goodlatte have taken leadership roles on each. Bliley, for example, heads the House Commerce Committee. Boucher has pushed the Commerce Committee for open access to high-speed broadband Internet connections. Together with Goodlatte, Boucher is pushing the Judiciary Committee to promote U.S. software makers by easing export rules. "Almost everything on high tech goes through one or both of those committees," says John Palafoutas, an American Electronics Association lobbyist. "The fact that they have a lock on both of the key committees in the House and represent a state that’s among the tops in the nation in technology makes them influential."

Of the trio, the most noteworthy is Bliley, a Richmond Republican who is retiring later this year. Bliley is something of a contradiction in his high-profile role. Dour and low-key, his trademark is a bow tie. He personally doesn’t use e-mail. "I intend to get to that point, but I haven’t had time," he says. Yet his pro-market instincts were profoundly stirred when the Republicans seized control of Congress in 1994; he became chair of the House Commerce Committee the next year. His championing of high-tech’s benefits has more to do with a decades-old belief in promoting competition and less to do with individual technologies.

Bliley’s legislative high point came four years ago when, as head of the House Commerce Committee, he was the key architect of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The act rewrote 1930s-era telecommunications laws and laid the groundwork for unleashing the Internet, wireless and satellite television industries. The act turned the telecom market on its head by allowing competition for local, long-distance and wireless telephone service. It also permitted cable, telephone and Internet companies to provide telephone, Internet service and television. That, in turn, spurred even faster development of more technologies.

Playing so critical a role in telecom development may seem odd for a man who was an undertaker in private life. It’s especially curious since at the time of the legislation, the Internet was just coming into its potential. Many, including Bliley, didn’t quite understand its implications. When the bill was before Bliley’s committee, now-mighty America Online had only a few hundred employees and eBay was only a few months old. "Wireless was just getting off the ground and was expensive," says Bliley. That has all changed. "Now the price is coming down and cell phones are as common as salt. ... We knew when we were passing the Telecommunica-tions Act we were creating a highway," he says. "We knew people would come to use it, but we didn’t know exactly where they were going to wanna go."

Aides and lobbyists regard Bliley as more of a big-picture guy, while Boucher and Goodlatte tend to focus more on individual technologies such as expanding access to broadband technology and allowing satellite companies to rebroadcast local television signals. This is partly due to their focus on their home districts and efforts to bridge the region’s potential to national markets. The two lawmakers view the increased access as something that will lead to increased competition and give their constituents the tools to compete with more established tech regions like Northern Virginia and the San Francisco Bay area. Goodlatte, for instance, has also used his Agriculture Committee post to seek government-based loans to bring satellite broadcasting to less-populated areas.

Initially, neither Goodlatte nor Boucher was sure how his efforts would be perceived back home, where banking, mining, retail, agriculture and health care operations are more common than Internet start-ups. "It’s a lot like the railroad in the 19th century," Goodlatte figures. "If it passes through your community, you boom. If it bypasses your community, you wither away and become a ghost town."

Boucher’s baptism into the world of technology came during the 1980s. He was trying to solve the decidedly low-tech problem of providing local television signals to his southwestern Virginia district, which was too remote for cable providers to wire and too mountainous to receive broadcast signals. While still focused on the needs of his mostly rural constituents, he has come a long way in backing telecommunications and high tech since he arrived on Capitol Hill in 1982. One factor driving him toward high tech is that Blacksburg’s Virginia Tech, a top research school, is in his district.

While serving on both the Commerce and Judiciary committees, Boucher has often teamed up with Goodlatte on vital pieces of legislation. The lawmakers from adjoining congressional districts have built a strong friendship. Their bond stretches across party and ideological lines, helping them build bipartisan consensus and earn national acclaim from the high-tech industry and rural communities. While they have come to view technology as a means to enable companies big and small to compete on the same playing field, they have also found it to be a powerful economic development tool capable of keeping towns alive or putting them on the map.

One example was a 1997 bill that protects copyright laws on the Internet. The pair was also behind last year’s Satellite Home Viewer Act, which allows satellite communications firms such as EchoStar Communications and DirectTV to rebroadcast local TV stations’ signals, thus remedying a major problem for customers in remote areas who must use satellite TV. Together they have worked to make Virginia Tech a leading wireless technology research center, to turn James Madison University into nationally recognized leader on Internet security, and to lure tech firms beyond the Dulles Corridor in Northern Virginia.

Such attention to high-tech issues is paying off in Boucher’s home district. Last year, EchoStar Communications opened a customer service center with 1,400 jobs in Christiansburg, part of the congressman’s district. The investment is expected to pump $30 million annually into the local economy. It’s now the third largest employer in the district, behind Virginia Tech and Volvo. The new project underscores the point that Southwest Virginia can handle high tech, Boucher says. "It’s virtually impossible to find employees in Northern Virginia for tech work," he notes. There are 30,000 unfilled jobs in that region. "In my district, we have people who can do this work."

Bob Goodlatte’s high-tech epiphany came during a House Judiciary Committee debate over encryption standards. The Roanoke congressman worried that U.S. export policies put American software companies at a competitive disadvantage. Goodlatte has also won kudos from high-tech leaders for pushing legislation easing export restrictions and toughening online copyright protections. "I didn’t know how my constituents would react because this really wasn’t what they wanted a representative to be doing," Goodlatte says. "But the more I have been involved, the more I think it’s become apparent that they get it, too. And they are very much interested and concerned that this technology reaches areas like Roanoke and Blacksburg."

While Goodlatte and Boucher are certain to remain high-tech kingpins on Capitol Hill, the immediate issue is what will happen when Bliley retires. For now, the 68-year-old has yet to say what he will do after Congress. Others have made suggestions: "My wife says, ‘You will get a job,’" he says. Several lobbyists and congressional aides suggest Bliley could continue to be a force as a telecommunications lobbyist.

Already, a pitched battle has begun regarding Bliley’s successor on the Commerce Committee. Reps. Mike Oxley, R-Ohio, and Billy Tauzin, R-La., are battling for his post. Both represent rural areas and favor increased competition, which Virginians say should prove favorable to the state. AOL’s Nelson says both men learned a great deal from Bliley, and while they differ stylistically, neither’s leadership should mean big changes. Should Democrats win back the House, however, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., would likely take the panel in a different direction. He would be expected to favor old-line industries and to push for increased regulation in areas such as ergonomics and consumer protections. It’s unclear what that would mean for the Virginia bloc’s laissez-faire policies on high tech, but many industry and state leaders worry the good times may be over if Democrats retake the House.

Yet not everyone will be shedding tears when Bliley leaves. Even Boucher and Goodlatte, who owes his Judiciary slot to the gentleman from Richmond, see some benefit, particularly assuming that Tauzin or Oxley control the gavel next year. In particular, they look forward to passing their Internet Freedom Act, which would open up high-speed Internet connections to competition the way the 1996 telecom bill did for telephone service. Bliley has opposed them on that Internet law, just as he has opposed their efforts to tinker with his 1996 legislation. "When he retires we will pass our broadband measure within the first month or two of the new Congress, because the Commerce Committee will be chaired by someone who supports our initiative," Boucher says. As supportive as Bliley has been, "he has not taken the level of interest on Internet issues that Bob Goodlatte has," says Boucher.

Meanwhile, Virginia businesses and state leaders are banking that their good relations with the Republicans lining up to succeed Bliley — and the continued service of Goodlatte and Boucher — will keep the state’s influence on national high-tech and telecommunications issues. "Tom Bliley is clearly a linchpin in there. You take him away and put someone else in there, it takes away a piece of the puzzle, but the team is still there," says Virginia Secretary of Technology Don Upson. Maybe. But there’s still nothing quite like having the chairman’s ear.