What the 2002 US Election Results means to P2P: A Peer2Politics Special Report Royale With Cheese

Since I’ve been away for a while, let’s start with a reintroduction as to just who the hell I am. I am TipYourBartender, and my job is to cover how the worlds of peer 2 peer and politics collide.

As most of us know by now, the 2002 elections are now over. By the way, if you spent your time masturbating to pictures of Bea Arthur instead of voting, shame on you.

As it stands, courtesy of MSNBC at 11:39 am Wednesday:

US SENATE:
Republicans – 50 seats
Democrats – 46 seats
Independents – 1 seat
3 SEATS UNDECIDED

US HOUSE:
Republicans – 227 seats
Democrats – 201 seats
Independents – 1 seat
6 SEATS UNDECIDED

The Republican Party now owns control of both government houses, and with Bush as president and a judiciary many pundits precieve as being Republican in viewpoint, the GOP now, for all intents and purposes, control the federal government.

Is that a good or a bad thing for P2P?
From here on out, everything I say is just conjecture from a poliical junkie, but I do believe most of what I say makes some kind of sense.

– One of the most important reasons why control of a government house is so important is that the party in control gets to have its members head up the various committees. For instance, James Sensenbrenner (R-WS) is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and he will continue in that regard, at least for the next 2 years. But the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was run by Pat Leahy (D-VT), will now be taken over most probably by Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who has been a long time supporter of peer 2 peer services. If Hatch is installed as Chairman, it will be much more beneficial than detrimental to peer 2 peer.

– The two most hated Congressmen to most proponets of Peer2Peer, Rep. Howard Berman and Sen. Fritz Hollings, both happen to be Democrats. With Fritz’ party losing control of the Senate, he may find his bill harder to push through.

In a larger sense, as this report from C-SPAN shows , the RIAA has been giving out donations almost exclusively to Democrats. I believe that if one were to search for other persons or companies involved in the fight against P2P, much more money has gone to the Democrats than the Republicans. Traditionally, the Democrats have always been thought to listen harder to the Big Entertainment companies than the GOP.

– Lastly, hundreds of Federal and Appellate Court seats are currently open. They are usually appointed by the President and are then sent to Congress for approval. If you think that’s unimportant, remember the difference between how the Clinton Administration handled US v. Microsoft, and then think how the Bush administration handled it.

Again, this is just conjecture from a political junkie. Will the changes in government help or hurt the P2P world? We’ll see in the next 2 years. However, one thing in my mind is certain. As the law begins to assert itself more in the P2P universe, government – on a local, state, and federal level – will continue to grow increasingly important.