Danyelle Solomon, senior U.S. AI policy director at Microsoft and a federal lobbyist, told a room dotted with congressional policymakers at a conference in Las Vegas in January what topped her company’s wish list from Congress. “We in the United States could really use a federal privacy law,” Solomon said.
Each year, dozens of House staffers attend the glitzy Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center on trips paid for by the Consumer Technology Association, a registered lobbying organization whose members include Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta.
The organization occasionally sponsors members of Congress, but most of the travel has been by staffers, many of whom play key roles in developing policy and writing legislation.
In 2024, CTA sponsored at least 42 House staffers, 21 of whom work for the House Energy and Commerce Committee or members on that committee, to sit in policy panels like Solomon’s.
CTA funds travelers’ transport, meals and two nights in a luxury hotel, amid millions of square feet of glittering gadgets and emerging technologies filling the convention center and Venetian Expo at the annual show.
The trade organization supports federal data privacy legislation that would preempt state privacy laws and limit the protections tech companies are required to provide to consumers. It’s part of at least a decade of lobbying Congress and executive agencies to keep federal privacy rules and legislation in check. CTA also wants Congress to establish national consumer privacy standards in federal law while policymakers refine potential national guardrails for AI.
The electronics show was the top tech-related destination and CTA was the No. 1 sponsor of travel to the annual event, according to an analysis of a decade of House travel records by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland.
The organization has paid for House staffers to attend about 400 times and U.S. representatives around 34 times from 2012 to 2023. In 2023 alone, CTA spent almost $90,000 bringing at least 45 House travelers to the show.
The Howard Center created a database of more about 17,000 trips representing travel by one U.S. House member or staffer, either alone or as part of a delegation, sometimes including family members. The vast majority of trips were taken by staffers.
In addition to House travel disclosures, nonprofit tax records and lobbying registrations, the Howard Center used data collected by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization, as well as by LegiStorm, a public affairs information platform, to document the extensive links between lobbyists and travel sponsors.
The center did not examine Senate travel. The much smaller Senate reported more than 2,600 trips during the same period, but its disclosure forms do not provide sponsors or destinations in a format that can be readily analyzed.
The 2006 conviction of lobbyist Jack Abramoff for using lavish trips and gifts to influence lawmakers led Congress to pass a law limiting lobbying organizations’ ability to ply staffers and members with travel. The 2007 law forbids lobbyists from more than minimal involvement in “planning, organizing, requesting or arranging” travel and accompanying sponsored travelers on “any segment of a trip.”
A narrow exception lets lobbying organizations sponsor a day of programming related to the traveler’s duties and pay for two nights of lodging if it’s far enough from Capitol Hill to warrant overnight stays.
CTA has taken full advantage of the exception allowing 24 hours of sponsored programming at the Consumer Electronics Show. There, CTA ensures member companies get a captive audience of staffers from key committees and congressional offices, all while following the letter of the law.
CTA declined multiple requests for an interview. But in a written statement, CTA CEO Gary Shapiro criticized the law as “extremely restrictive” and said it limits lawmakers’ ability to learn about emerging technology.
The Howard Center reached out to more than 75 former staffers and five U.S. representatives who attended CES between 2012 and 2023. Only six former staffers agreed to be interviewed but none agreed to be named.
Many said they realize it’s in CTA’s interests to educate House travelers about issues affecting member companies.
“You get to put the people on the panels that your membership wants on the panels,” said a former Republican committee staffer who attended the electronics show several times in the past decade. “This isn’t an academic exercise. They’re not showing up and going, ‘Wow, we really need to have a balanced panel.’ They’re presenting a viewpoint.”
But some questioned why their interactions with lobbyists at CES should merit any more scrutiny than encounters in Washington.
THE DATA PRIVACY DEBATE
California became the first state to pass a comprehensive data privacy law in 2018. Seventeen states have followed as of May 2024.
CTA has argued that conflicting state privacy laws could kill startups and discourage innovative uses of consumer data, including those involving artificial intelligence.
Their position was on full display during the panels they sponsored at the electronics show in January.
Tim Kurth, chief counsel for a key House Energy and Commerce subcommittee working on tech, was among the speakers calling for a comprehensive data privacy law.
Kurth said during the data privacy panel that Congress should prioritize a federal privacy law over legislation targeting AI, because a privacy law would address some key concerns about how AI systems use personal information while Congress grapples with larger questions of AI policy. He said “it’s really important to keep the focus on that fundamental, foundational step to get the data privacy bill done.”
Three months later, on April 7, Kurth’s boss, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, and her Senate counterpart, Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, introduced the draft American Privacy Rights Act. It would preempt state laws and put in place federal limits on data collection and use. It also would create enforcement measures.
CTA has stepped up its advocacy efforts for a federal privacy bill that would limit how AI uses consumers’ personal data without impeding AI innovation. This is against the backdrop of an increased national conversation about the emerging technology, especially after the release of ChatGPT.
“Privacy is completely intermingled with this AI discussion, and for many of the use cases, maybe the less talked-about use cases, privacy becomes the dominant concern from a regulatory and compliance perspective,” said David McIntyre, vice president of marketing of the tech company Perceive, during a panel on AI on Jan. 11.
At a health innovation panel Jan. 9, Senate Finance Committee staffer Conor Sheehey said, “I don’t think we need necessarily an AI-targeted or AI-specific approach here.”
Marisa Salemme, another Senate Finance Committee staffer, agreed, describing how CTA staff’s interactions with congressional staffers can inform policy.
“One of the most valuable aspects of our job is that we do hear from stakeholders, and we do get to meet with folks like Catherine (Pugh, a CTA director of digital health) and many of the CTA members, and they bring such valuable information to us for policymaking,” Salemme said.
On April 17, at the first discussion of the draft digital privacy bill in Kurth’s House subcommittee, CTA was well-represented in the gallery. Behind the subcommittee members, Kurth and other past electronics show attendees faced the CTA staff, who were holding CTA folders for Tech Week, the organization’s annual lobbying blitz when CTA staff escort its members down the halls of Congress to talk policy with lawmakers.
In a statement that week, CTA CEO Gary Shapiro expressed appreciation for the “bipartisan, bicameral effort” to pass a federal privacy law.
The afternoon following the hearing, Pugh walked members of Congress out of another Tech Week event, “CES on the Hill,” an annual “mini, curated CES” for members and staffers held at CTA’s Capitol Hill row house. Plenty of props were on display, including a Samsung AI vacuum cleaner and a GMC Hummer EV pickup truck on the back patio.
Pugh chatted with Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-California, a recent addition to the subcommittee considering the new draft data privacy bill, escorting him up the sidewalk.
Setting the table for a future CTA priority, she told him: “We’re really excited about all your work on AI.”
CTA funded Obernolte to attend CES in 2022 with his son Troy, where he gave opening remarks on a cybersecurity panel, attended programming on AI and, according to the congressman’s Twitter post, “share(d) ideas that will improve our businesses and national security.”
Obernolte’s office did not respond to multiple call or email requests for comment. Neither Pugh nor a CTA spokesperson commented on her role at CES on the Hill.