Representative Charles W. Pickering

Charles Willis “Chip” Pickering Jr. (born August 10, 1963) is an American businessman, educator, and former Republican politician who represented Mississippi’s 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 1997, to January 3, 2009. Over six terms in Congress, he participated actively in the legislative process during a significant period in American political and economic history, and later became chief executive officer (CEO) of Incompas, a trade association for competitive communications and technology companies, in 2014.

Pickering was born in Laurel, Mississippi, to attorney Charles W. Pickering, who later became a federal judge. He is a cousin of Stacey Pickering, who has served as Mississippi State Auditor, as a Mississippi State Senator, and as executive director of the Mississippi Veterans Affairs Board. Raised in a family deeply involved in law, politics, and public service, he developed early exposure to civic life and conservative politics in Mississippi. His family also maintained a close relationship with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, reflecting their longstanding engagement with national legal and political circles.

Pickering attended the University of Mississippi, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration. While there, he was a legacy member of the Eta chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity, continuing a family tradition of involvement in campus life. He went on to pursue graduate studies in business, receiving a Master of Business Administration from Baylor University in 1989. His academic training in business administration would later inform both his policy interests in Congress, particularly in telecommunications and commerce, and his subsequent career in the private sector.

Before entering formal political service in Washington, Pickering worked in international and missionary contexts. He served as a Southern Baptist missionary in Hungary after the Hungarian government ended its persecution of religious believers, an experience that exposed him to the political and economic transitions of post-Communist Eastern Europe. In 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed him as a Department of Agriculture liaison to the former European Communist countries, where he worked on agricultural and economic issues during a period of rapid systemic change. Returning to Capitol Hill, Pickering joined the staff of U.S. Senator Trent Lott in 1992 and served there until 1996. During this time, he played a role in shaping the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the first major overhaul of U.S. telecommunications law since 1934, and spent a year on the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee, gaining detailed experience in regulatory and economic policy.

In 1996, Pickering ran for Congress from Mississippi’s 3rd congressional district as a Republican. He defeated eight other Republicans in the primary and then won the general election over Democrat John Arthur Eaves Jr. with 61 percent of the vote. He took office on January 3, 1997, and would go on to serve six consecutive terms, retiring from the House in January 2009. During his tenure, he represented a largely rural and small-city district in central Mississippi, participating in the democratic process and advocating for the interests of his constituents in areas such as agriculture, telecommunications, energy, and economic development. He also served as George W. Bush’s co-chairman for Mississippi in Bush’s presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004, underscoring his prominence within state and national Republican politics.

In Congress, Pickering became particularly associated with telecommunications, technology, and energy policy. He served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the chamber’s most influential panels, and held assignments on its Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee, the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, and the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee. From 2003 to 2007, he served as vice-chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, giving him a central role in shaping legislative responses to emerging issues in energy markets, environmental regulation, and the rapidly evolving communications sector. In 1998, as chairman of the Basic Research Subcommittee of the U.S. House Science Committee, he helped oversee the transition from a government research internet to a commercial internet, including the establishment of internet domain names, registries, and multi-stakeholder governance structures. In agricultural policy, he contributed to provisions in the 2002 Farm Bill that doubled funding for the Conservation Reserve Program, the Wetlands Reserve Program, and other conservation initiatives administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In recognition of bipartisan leadership, he received the Lewis-Houghton Leadership Award in 2008, jointly with Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.

Pickering’s congressional career unfolded amid broader national debates over deregulation, trade, and the role of government in emerging technologies. His work on telecommunications and internet policy built on his earlier Senate staff experience with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and he became one of the House’s more visible Republican voices on communications competition and infrastructure. At the same time, his engagement with conservation funding in the 2002 Farm Bill reflected the importance of agriculture and land stewardship to his Mississippi constituency. He announced his decision not to seek reelection and retired from the House of Representatives in January 2009, concluding twelve years of service in the U.S. Congress.

After leaving Congress, Pickering entered the private sector and policy advocacy. He became a partner at Capitol Resources LLC, a government relations and consulting firm, where he represented numerous companies and organizations before federal and state governments. In 2014, he joined Incompas (formerly known as COMPTEL), the national trade association for competitive communications and technology companies, and became its chief executive officer. In this role, he has continued to work on issues related to broadband deployment, competition in telecommunications, and internet policy, drawing on his legislative experience. He has also served as an adjunct professor in the University of Mississippi’s Department of Public Policy Leadership, where he teaches a bi-monthly seminar, PPL 211: Political Campaigns, sharing practical insights into electoral strategy and public service with undergraduate students.

Pickering has maintained a public presence in various ways. In 2006, he made a brief appearance in the satirical film “Borat” as a speaker at a church service attended by the title character, reflecting his engagement with religious and community events in Mississippi. In April 2023, he and his father, Charles W. Pickering, donated their archives to the Mississippi Political Collections at Mississippi State University’s Mitchell Memorial Library, preserving their papers and records for scholarly research on Mississippi and national politics. Over the years, his public career has also been the subject of media scrutiny, including reporting on his financial disclosures and his consideration of post-congressional lobbying roles.

In his personal life, Pickering married Leisha Pickering, with whom he has five sons. He filed for divorce in June 2008. On July 16, 2009, his estranged wife filed a complaint in Hinds County Circuit Court under Mississippi’s alienation of affection law, alleging that Pickering and his college sweetheart, Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd—of the Creekmore family that founded the Cellular South telephone company—had maintained a long-standing adulterous extramarital relationship during his congressional career in Washington, D.C. The complaint further alleged that Creekmore Byrd urged him to decline Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s 2007 offer of former Senator Trent Lott’s Senate seat so that he could leave Congress, divorce his wife, and be with her. According to journalist Max Blumenthal in The Daily Beast, “In the end, Pickering chose his mistress over his congressional career and his wife.” These events, alongside his family’s close ties to national legal and political figures such as Justice Scalia, have formed part of the broader public narrative surrounding his life and career.