With Bill Richardson out of the running for Secretary of Commerce, I propose that we go in a completely different direction for now. I took Richardson's presumptive nomination as a signal from Barack Obama that he's serious about negotiating "fair trade" deals instead of laissez-faire deals. If Richardson really expects to eventually be cleared and available for later appointment to the post, then I would like to start out with a Commerce Secretary whose strength lies in the other major element of the Commerce Department's portfolio: the regulation of intellectual property.
Bill Richardson's strengths include a national stature that commands personal respect -- not just respect conferred by his position -- and international diplomatic experience. I think that he would be a very good choice for the trade negotiation element of the Commerce Dept.'s portfolio...so much so that it might be best for the Obama administration's first Commerce Secretary to leave the stickiest wickets for when Richardson becomes available. In the meantime, he or she could have competent undersecretaries lay the groundwork for those deals, while completing the more straightforward deals and personally focusing on the aspect of the job that isn't Richardson's forte: intellectual property issues. I think that Lawrence Lessig would be an excellent choice for that role.
The problem, as I see it, is over-corporatization of our IP law in two directions. In one direction, corporations have repeatedly successfully purchased the access to convince our legislators to expand corporate intellectual property rights at the expense of the commonwealth. In the other direction, AFAIK, only Californians have protection of their human right to create their own IP on their own time, no matter whom they work for and what abusive clauses might be in their labor contracts.
At some point, it is no longer possible for the copyright incentive to spur enough more production of original content to compensate for the opportunity cost to the public of all of the foregone production of derivative content. I believe that we've long since passed that point, and that our copyright laws are actually stifling innovation. There are creative, energetic young adults whose parents (or even grandparents!) grew up with a particular lore, yet who are forbidden from profiting from expansion on their own cultural heritage. That's both unjust and a foolish waste.
Likewise, corporate disrespect for your human sovereignty is also stifling innovation. To the best of my knowledge, most Americans operate under the threat of being sued by their employers if they attempt to create their own for-profit IP on their own time. It's long past time for the Federal gov't to guarantee the civil right of personal IP creation as California does.
Now, I'm not an expert in these issues. If you have questions, I probably can't answer them without Google. All I know is, Lawrence Lessig has been at the forefront of advocating for the public interest on IP issues, and I would like to see him (or someone like him) be the one proposing reform regulation to Congress and doing what he can to help us by executive fiat. Then someday, when those issues have been sufficiently well explained to the American people and a good start has been made on them -- perhaps in 2010, when Bill Richardson is term-limited out of NM-Gov anyway -- then Richardson can be brought in to carry the ball over the goal line on the hardest ongoing trade negotiations.