If there is a single constant to the State of the Union, it’s this: One or another interest group’s hopes rise that this year’s address will finally put its agenda in the spotlight — and then those hopes fall precipitously and predictably to earth when their issues go unmentioned in the final text. The irony, of course, is that the Lucy-and-the-football quality of the speech is part of what gives it power.
This year’s Linus? Some would say tech policy. In the week before the speech, the president spoke on cybersecurity and high-speed broadband. He visited Iowa and met employees at Cedar Falls Utilities, a municipal broadband service provider. He called for data breach legislation and cyber information sharing between the public and private sectors. All signs pointed to a tech-heavy address.
Which is why some were let down by what was ultimately delivered Tuesday: “I intend to protect a free and open internet, extend its reach to every classroom and every community, and help folks build the fastest networks, so that the next generation of digital innovators and entrepreneurs have the platform to keep reshaping our world.”
It doesn’t seem like much. But as with such addresses, the meaning extends further than the rhetoric. There were two policy prescriptions in this section. First: a renewal of the president’s call for the FCC to enforce strong net neutrality legislation. With Congressional Republicans currently hashing out legislation of their own, this was a timely and clear signal, and as strong a message as the White House has sent since last November, when the president first called for strong net neutrality protections.
Another policy nugget buried in the gauzy prose: a push by the president to strike down laws in several states that prohibit local governments from building broadband networks, one reason why more than half of rural Americans lack high-speed internet access. Nineteen states have laws on the books restricting local governments from going into the broadband business. Obama and the FCC chairmen have argued that the FCC’s pro-competition mandate gives it the power to overturn such laws. Congressional Republicans call that an attack on states’ power, and they’re backed by a number of telecom companies that would face new competition from municipal networks if the president got his way. Republicans are prepared to pass legislation blocking the FCC from taking action. The president’s words point to an almost certain veto if they do.
Later in the speech, the president briefly touched on cybersecurity: “I urge this Congress to finally pass the legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber-attacks, combat identity theft, and protect our children’s information.” In the wake of the Sony hack, cybersecurity is back in the public consciousness, and Congress is likely to take action on it this year. The president’s words offer little guidance on the White House’s specific thoughts on the matter, but this is one of the rare areas on which both the president and Congress may find some genuine agreement in the year to come.
Just as important is what wasn’t in the speech: patent reform. The president made mention of the issue in last year’s State of the Union, when he called for Congress to pass legislation that “allows our businesses to stay focused on innovation, not costly and needless litigation.” Patent reform’s absence left some “disappointed,” most notably Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Here’s a salve for Goodlatte and anyone else troubled by tech’s scant mention in the president’s speech: It hardly matters. On tech policy, as in much else, the president can make speeches and state preferences — but that’s about it. He can veto the laws he dislikes, but he cannot force through the laws he supports. That doesn’t mean presidential speechifying isn’t important. It is. Signals matter; veto threats have real effects on legislation. And the strongest veto threats are the ones made in public, before the largest possible audience — because those are the threats it’s hardest to back down from. But even so, the news cycle tends to overinflate the importance of a few oracular hints as to what the White House will actually do. Hints are nice — but it’s the real give-and-take of the legislative process that should command our attention. And that’s the work of months, not an hour or so on a Tuesday night.
This year, Congress is likely to take up net neutrality, patent law and surveillance reform in some meaningful way. And that’s the proper place for those debates. The case for the internet as an open platform has been made often enough that it doesn’t need to be repeated. What we need to be reminded of is this: The debates about the most open platform mankind has ever built should take place in the most open manner available to us.
Which is Congress. So to the tech wonks who feel like they’ve fallen flat on their backs after a missed kick, remember: You didn’t miss the football. Lucy didn’t have it in the first place.
