While Congress is in recess, a number of members are taking the opportunity to travel to Silicon Valley, including the House Republican High-Tech Working Group, led by Internet Caucus co-chair Robert Goodlatte, R-VA. The Mainstreet Republicans, led by Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-CT, are also touring the area next week. House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-CA, is also scheduled to attend a fundraiser in the area, organized in part by TechNet, the Valley's bipartisan lobbying group. On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-CA took House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers, D-MI, on a tour of the region.

     Just prior to members' trips to the Valley, Vice President Al Gore visited the area over the weekend, where he attended several high-tech events and a fundraiser. At a lunch hosted by Jesse Singh, head of BLS Electronics, Gore talked about allowing skilled foreign workers to stay in the United States to help keep the high-tech industry growing. Later, he attended a fundraiser at the home of Joel Hyatt, who is financial co-chairman of the Democratic National Committee. About 70 venture capitalists, software engineers and entrepreneurs attended and raised about $2.6 million for the party. Later in the weekend, Gore visited the opening of the first cybercafe in South Central Los Angeles area, praising it as a step in closing the digital divide.

     Meanwhile, Business Week's April 24th issue named what it believes to be the top 10 high-tech members of Congress. The list includes Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-MI, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Davis, R-VA, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-TX, Rep. Cal Dooley, D-CA, House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-CA, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-CA, Internet Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-VA, Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-AZ, Rep. Jim Moran, D-VA, Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-CA, and House Commerce Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin, R-LA.

     In the week before the congressional break, several Silicon Valley executives paid Capitol Hill a visit including Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay. She was a keynote speaker at the House Democrat Caucus lunch last Wednesday, where she discussed the history of eBay and gave her pitch in support of a database bill sponsored by Rep. Howard Coble, R-NC. Unexpectedly, she also discussed the growing awareness in Silicon Valley that the industry's mantra to let self-regulation on privacy work might be getting tired, according to a Democratic staff member who attended the meeting. "She acknowledged that there was sort of a shift in Silicon Valley's understanding for the need for some sort of remedy, when it comes to privacy," the staff member said.

     Roger Mott, AT&T's most veteran Washington lobbyist, is switching teams to work for rival Bell Atlantic's lobbying shop, National Journal's CongressDaily reported last week. Mott, who started with AT&T soon after divestiture of the so-called Baby Bells in 1984, was lured to Bell Atlantic by former Rep. Tom Tauke, R-IA, who heads the latter's Washington office. Mott is the fourth AT&T lobbyist to leave the Washington operation in the past month. Former Senate Commerce staffer Kevin Joseph left after a year on the job to start up the lobbying office of competitive phone provider Allegiance Telecom. Rick Bailey, formerly No. 2 at AT&T's Washington office, moved to Denver to work with the company's broadband services unit, while Bruce Cox, vice president of legislative affairs, retired.

     Simon Rosenberg, executive director and life force behind the New Democrat Network, is being kicked upstairs. Rosenberg is to become president of NDN to give him more time to focus on developing relationships with New Democrat constitutents, including the high-tech industry. Sue Brodsky is to take his place as executive director and focus on the day-to-day operations of NDN. The New Democrat Network is the political wing of the New Democrats, a group of moderate House and Senate Democrats who mostly hail from swing districts and states. The group has worked hard to court the business community, and with the high-tech industry, NDN has been successful. NDN is planning its annual Silicon Valley trip for members from June 1-4.

     It's the battle of the Web sites. The re-election campaign for Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-MI announced that Michigan voters can download petition forms from the Abraham 2000 Web site. "Web surfers will be able to download the forms and circulate them like traditional forms, gathering signatures to put Senator Abraham's name on Michigan's U.S. Senate ballot," the campaign said. In the same release, the campaign also noted that Abraham's challenger, Rep. Debbie Stabenow, D-MI, has yet to put up a campaign Web site. Stabenow's slowness to get her campaign online is a surprise given that she is a New Democrat, a moderate faction of House Democrats that has focused on reaching out to the high-tech community. Stabenow's campaign spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.

     The presidential campaign race may be over for former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-NJ, and Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, but their Web masters live on. Max Fose, Web master for McCain, started his own company called Integrated Web Strategy and he already has several client's including McCain, who is starting a new political action committee called the Straight Talk America PAC for which he'll be working on a Web strategy. The McCain campaign plans to use the approximately 142,000 e-mail addresses the campaign collected to target them about news on the new PAC. Separately, Bradley's Web master, Lynn Reed, has gone back to working full-time at her business, the Net Politics Group, which she had started before the campaign. Reed said she continues to work on campaigns, but has gotten increasingly into the consulting business and is "telling lots of stories" about being on the Web campaign trail.

     The Democratic Leadership Council is losing its Web master, Amy McAndrews, to iDEFENSE, a start-up company that devises online securities strategies for companies. McAndrews will be helping iDEFENSE's Jerry Irvine, to set up the company's public relations component. Irvine is the DLC's former director of communications.

     One of the newest entrants into the Internet broadband lobbying game is old economy energy company, Enron. The natural gas and electric company has hired public affairs firm Fleishman-Hillard to lobby on Internet and broadband services issues, according to a lobbying form filed with the Federal Elections Commission on March 31. Enron has an Web-based system that enables companies to buy and sell energy products online.

     Dan Chenok in the White House's Office of Management and Budget, has been named chief of the Information Policy and Technology Branch of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. In that job, he is likely to contribute to information technology policy. Chenok had been acting branch chief since September, replacing the former chief, Bruce McConnell, who left to head the International Y2K Cooperation Center. After watching the world’s computers successfully meet the new millennium, McConnell left government to start an international consulting firm.

     Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-SC, named Andy Davis as his new communications director. Davis began his careers as a staff assistant to Rep. David Skaggs, D-CO, and then moved to the Senate Democratic Technology and Communications Committee, where he spent over a year as a radio producer before becoming the committee's deputy director.

     After seven years abroad, Shanthi Kalathil has joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in DC as an associate in the Project on the Information Revolution and World Politics. Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment, Kalathil got a masters from the London School of Economics and was a reporter for the Asian Wall Street Journal covering Asian telecom markets. She plans to put to use her continued interest in the application of information technology in Asia at the Carnegie Endowment.

     Amy Weiss has been named the senior vice president for communications at the Recording Industry Association of America where she will concentrate on the technology issues that are affecting the music industry. The recording industry has been roiled by the onset of technology enabling computer users to download music from the Internet, and the industry fears it will have a more difficult time fighting intellectual property piracy.

- by Bara Vaida