You misunderstood my partisanship

From Politico...

Will Marsha Blackburn be GOP’s next tech policy champion?

In the first few weeks of 2011, Rep. Marsha Blackburn didn’t just test the tech policy waters, she dove in head first.

On the opening day of the 112th Congress, the Tennessee Republican reintroduced a bill to bar the Federal Communications Commission from instituting net neutrality rules. Days later, she spoke on an online privacy panel at the geek equivalent of the Oscars: the International Consumer Electronics Show. Last week, she keynoted the State of the Net conference — the biggest tech policy fete in the capital so far this year.

Blackburn’s turf, however, is far from the tech hubs of Silicon Valley, New York’s Silicon Alley or Boston’s Route 128 corridor. She’s from Brentwood, Tenn., a suburb of Nashville, known more for producing country music than silicon chips or Web startups.

The tech community has taken notice.

“She seems to be doing more keynote addresses and taking much more of a visible role,” said Darrell West, founding director of Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation. “There’s been great public interest in tech, and she’s taken advantage of that to carve out a niche in tech policy.”

Blackburn says she’s been active all along.

“Maybe some people just weren’t paying attention,” Blackburn told POLITICO. “But I’m glad they are now.”

Blackburn’s opposition to net neutrality — she calls it “the Fairness Doctrine for the Internet” — dates back to 2006, when Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a bill to keep the Internet open. She said the content community in Nashville feared the federal government would control Internet traffic, and it wanted to deal directly with service providers.

Today, Blackburn says the burgeoning health and energy IT sectors in her district are concerned the FCC will use net neutrality to regulate their businesses.

With her district’s country music roots, Blackburn has been involved in intellectual property issues since her election to the seat in 2002, serving on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She also founded the Congressional Songwriters Caucus — for which she serves as chairwoman — “to shine a light on some of the concerns with intellectual property.”

But her keynote at the State of the Net rubbed some the wrong way because it was partisan; the word “conservatives” popped up nearly a dozen times.

“Beginning with the coming repeal of the FCC overreach, conservatives should apply our philosophy to the broader arena of tech policy,” Blackburn said in her speech. “We must do so in the spirit of our classic defense of free markets and property rights, while guarding against needless regulation and federal intervention.”

Net neutrality aside, the tech sector often boasts bipartisan support. “Nobody wants no regulation, and too much regulation and the wrong kind can be damaging,” said Ed Black, president and CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

Blackburn, however, says she was misunderstood.

“Defense of free markets is where we need to be when establishing a vision for national technology policy,” she said.