Can the GOP Rescue Tech? is the title of a Tech Investor piece by Eric Hellweg in Business 2.0. Among its Nuggets:

• CNET says Senate Republicans vote the tech line 84% of the time, compared to 65% for Senate Democrats. On the House side, it's 89% to 43% in favor of the GOP.
  
• The Information Technology Industry Council is taking the lobbying lead for the tech industry. Apple, Dell, Sun and others are members.
  
• The ITI has a Voting Guide for the 107th Congress.
  
• TechNet is another lobbying .org.
  
• A leading priority for ITI is the Expensing Technology Reform Act of 2001, introduced by Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill). It Accellerates the depreciation rate for business tech from five years down to one (perhaps bringing it into compliance with a surreal market reciprocal of Moore's Law — compute power may double every 18 months, but the iron itself dropps to worthlessness in 2/3 of that time). A watered down version (30% off in the first year) was part of President Bush's stimulus package, but with the Republicans advancing their majority in the house, Weller may be in a better position to push something through.
  
• The ITI doesn't like the Hollings bill, and some heavy Republicans don't, either:
  

  
  

  The technology industry also hopes to drive a stake through the heart of a controversial, Democrat-led copyright protection bill. The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Act, sponsored by Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., would have required tech companies to incorporate special antipiracy technologies into consumer electronic devices.
  

  "Hollings was facing an uphill battle with that act," notes Hellmann (of the ITI). "Now it's a battle against Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.; Sen. Tom DeLay, R-Texas; and Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. -- all of whom take a dim view of Hollywood's political agenda."