Christine Kurth has been named to succeed Lisa Sutherland as Republican staff director for Senate Commerce Committee.
Sutherland, who played a big role in telecom policy when the Republicans ran the committee, announced two weeks ago that she was stepping down.
Kurth had been deputy staff director under Sutherland, concentrating on communications policy, including for the 1996 Telecommunications Act rewrite. She also helped draft the digital television transition legislation that passed in the last Congress. That bill set the February 17 hard date for conversion to digital and set up a program for subsidizing digital-to-analog converter boxes to keep as many analog-only sets as possible from going dark after that date.
Kurth began as an intern for Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who co-chairs the committee.
