Eric Schmitt
U.S. Senator from Missouri
Eric Stephan Schmitt was born in June 1975 in Bridgeton, Missouri. He earned an undergraduate degree in political science from Truman State University and received his Juris Doctor from Saint Louis University School of Law. He was an adjunct faculty member at Saint Louis University before entering private practice.
Schmitt was an alderman for Glendale, Missouri, for three years before being elected to the Missouri Senate. He decided not to return to the Senate but ran instead for Treasurer of Missouri, a position he won and filled for two years. He was appointed to the office of Attorney General of Missouri and served four years there.
He was elected to be U.S. Senator from Missouri, assuming his position in January 2023.
Schmitt is married to Jamie, and they have three children. The family is Roman Catholic.
In the News…
Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri sent a letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) regarding the attempt to regulate rates through the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.
Senator Schmitt stated in the letter, “The BEAD program was authorized to expand broadband to unserved and underserved areas of the country. Yet, your alarming actions to set rates of service provided through the program will lead to fewer people served and less competition. Most importantly, using the BEAD program to implement any rate regulation is unlawful.“
“It has come to my attention that your agency has conditioned federal funding on a policy requirement that violates congressional intent,“ he wrote. “In fact, the authorizing legislation that created the BEAD program expressly stated when referring to the BEAD program that ‘Nothing in this title may be construed to authorize the Assistant Secretary or the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to regulate the rates charged for broadband service.‘”
He continued, “In requiring this, your agency is now conditioning BEAD funding on a set price, effectively rate regulating service providers and willfully violating the law... If the will of Congress was for NTIA or states to condition BEAD participation on providers agreeing to regulation of their rates, it would not have enacted such a provision explicitly prohibiting it.“
Senator Schmitt stated that, as 41 states have yet to be approved under the program to date, it appears that the NTIA seeks to “devise a covert strategy to implement rate regulation as a condition of federal funding under the BEAD program.“
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Senator Schmitt today? You can let him know at:
The Honorable Eric Schmitt
Senator from Missouri
387 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
