Entertainment industry eyes post-election changes

WASHINGTON _ It's a week before Election Day, and it seems everyone here is playing a version of a hot new game show called ``What If?''
Contestants in the game try to figure out the answer to three questions: What if the Democrats take control of the House? What if the Democrats take control of the Senate? What if the Republicans hold on?
The game will go on until sometime after Nov. 7, when all the ballots are counted and the election challenges on the closest races are settled. Until then, the only thing that is guaranteed is that there will be changes, and those changes will affect the entertainment industry as its lobbyists and allies in Congress attempt to gain an edge and enact new policy.
Under the conventional rules of the game, a Democratic win in either chamber is good for the entertainment industry. It is a perception that entertainment industry executives say is somewhat misplaced.
``The overlay on the issues we deal with tends to be more bipartisan,'' Motion Picture Association of America chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said. ``We have friends on all the committees and subcommittees. I manage to maintain friendships on both sides of the aisle.''
No matter what next week's election brings, Glickman said he hopes to expand the major studios' agenda beyond the House and Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees. He plans to mount a push in the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee; because all revenue bills are constitutionally required to begin in the House, that panel is key.
Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., is retiring. Although Thomas was a Californian, he refused to go along with a tax benefit that some studios badly wanted as part of a 2004 bill, in which Hollywood's lobby wanted each movie, DVD or videotape treated as a separate line of business. The favorable tax break was turned back in part because other business wanted the same thing. Glickman wants to renew the push.
``We plan to spend a lot of time and focus on federal tax policy,'' he said. ``For whatever reason, even though he was a Californian, we saw some things differently than Chairman Thomas.''
Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., is Thomas' likely successor if the Republicans hold the House. If the Democrats win, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is the most likely new chairman. Glickman said he has a good relationship with both lawmakers.
While many opponents of the entertainment industry like to paint it as a monolithic monster, that might be a simplistic view. Glickman's credentials are solidly Democratic, but that is counter-balanced by other high-profile lobbyists in the business _ most notably Recording Industry Association of America chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol, a Republican and former top aide to Senate majority leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Frist, a possible