The Washington Post, February 26, 2004

Telecom Feud Puts Conservative Scholars in Unusual Position

A feud over telecommunications policy has erupted among leading conservatives that paints Grover Norquist, an informal adviser to the Bush administration, as a friend of telecommunications regulation and puts others in the unusual position of siding with Democratic senators.

A dozen conservative scholars yesterday wrote a letter to Norquist assailing him for what they charge is his wrongheaded approach to telecommunications regulation. The letter alleges that Norquist has abandoned his free-market roots when it comes to issues such as implementation of a national broadband policy.

Conservatives and major industry groups have vigorously advocated a national broadband policy that would include deregulating key aspects of the industry. But they've been frustrated by their lack of progress at a time when the White House and Congress are both in Republican hands. Some have blamed Norquist, who they say has been hesitant to embrace deregulatory measures in telecom.

"Your position on telecommunications deregulation is contrary to the views of the vast majority of free-market economists and policy analysts," the letter states. "Your continuing advocacy of the pro-regulation position is destructive to the cause of limited government. To the extent your efforts are successful, the effect will be to reduce capital formation, slow job creation, impede productivity growth and stifle individual liberty and economic freedom."

The presidents of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, the Pacific Research Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute as well as scholars at the Hoover Institution and the Manhattan Institute all signed the letter.

Norquist said yesterday that the allegation that he is pro-regulation in telecommunications is "nonsense."

The feud puts the conservative scholars in the unusual position of defending nine Democratic senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and presidential candidate John F. Kerry (Mass.), who wrote to President Bush on Jan. 16 advocating the creation of a national broadband policy.

Norquist responded to that letter 10 days later with his own letter to the president in which he called on Bush to reject the senators' demand for a national broadband policy. He described the policy as a vehicle for "government micromanagement of broadband to protect a handful of union-dominated companies against entrepreneurial innovators and competitors."

Yesterday's letter was framed as a response to Norquist's criticism of the senators, and it urged Norquist "to come back to the side of limited government."

Norquist said his letter to the president had been meant as a specific repudiation of efforts by Democrats and labor unions to dictate policy.

"I do not think for a second that the Communications Workers of America, which has opposed all deregulatory efforts, or the nine Democratic senators, who have similarly opposed deregulation, have in mind something that any free-market group could support," he said.

Norquist said he remains a proponent of deregulating telecom. If the scholars who wrote yesterday's letter have a proposal for a national broadband policy that they want him to support, he said, "that's news to me."

One telecommunications industry lobbyist who has been active in advocating for a national broadband policy said he has been "dumbfounded" by the administration's unwillingness to more publicly engage with the issue. He said, however, that any assertion that Norquist is to blame may be a stretch.

"I have never heard that Grover is the guy who's holding things up," he said. "In all my meetings, nobody ever said, 'Check with Grover.' "

Norquist, who is often cited as the force behind Bush administration policy decisions on everything from war to the economy, laughed off allegations that he is somehow responsible for holding up Bush administration support for a national broadband policy.

"This only being in charge of telecommunications policy thing is beneath my imperial ambitions," Norquist said. "I think sometimes you get credit for stuff that you didn't necessarily do."

© 2004. The Washington Post Company