The battle lines over net neutrality are firmly drawn. On one side are internet advocacy groups, large tech companies, and most Democrats. On the other are free-market adherents, telecom companies, and most Republicans.

Then there’s Charles "Chip" Pickering, a conservative Republican former member of Congress and CEO of a telecommunications-industry group called Incompas. He supports net neutrality.

"I don't think there's anyone who understands tech and telecommunications as well as he does," says US representative Anna Eshoo (D-California). "He can give a presentation to a complete neophyte and get them to join the parade because he makes it so compelling."

Pickering isn't new to the fight over net neutrality. He introduced one of the first net neutrality bills in Congress during his stint as a representative from Mississippi from 1997 until 2009. At that point, net neutrality wasn't on the agenda of many politicians on either side of the aisle.

Under Pickering's leadership, Incompas has been a steadfast defender of rules adopted by the Obama-era Federal Communications Commission that ban broadband providers like Comcast and Verizon from blocking or discriminating against lawful content. That’s placed it at odds with other industry groups working to undermine efforts to mandate net neutrality.

Incompas itself is something of a paradox. Historically, it's been a voice in Washington for smaller telecommunications companies. But in recent years it also welcomed tech companies as members. And not just companies that have dabbled in offering broadband services themselves, such as Facebook and Google's parent company, Alphabet. Its ranks also include Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter.

What these companies have in common, Pickering explains, is opposition to the policy preferences of incumbent broadband companies like AT&T. "The idea is to 'unite the tribes,' if I were to use a Braveheart analogy," Pickering says. "I wanted to bring all of us who wanted competition and innovation into one alliance."

Lessons From the Soviet Bloc

While other Republicans, such as FCC chair Ajit Pai, see net neutrality regulations as government interference in the free market, Pickering sees such rules as necessary to preserve competition on the internet. He notes that most people have access to only one or two broadband providers, according to FCC reports.

Pickering traces his reverence for markets and competition to his time working with a church group in communist Hungary in the 1980s after graduating from the University of Mississippi. "Having grown up in a small town in Mississippi, going to Europe and living in the so-called Soviet Bloc was very much an awakening in trying to understand how the world works," he says.

'I don't think there's anyone who understands tech and telecommunications as well as he does.' US representative Anna Eshoo, on Charles Pickering

After returning to the US, Pickering received an MBA from Baylor University, where he served as a graduate assistant to a comparative economics professor who studied Western and Soviet-bloc economies. Pickering concluded that the differences in standards of living and individual freedom he saw between the US and Hungary stemmed largely from the different economic systems.

"I hate to see the consequences of monopolies, and I love what happens when you unleash free-market competition," he says. "It really gives individuals maximum freedom and opportunity."

After business school, Pickering worked in President George H. W. Bush's administration, then landed a job as a staffer for US senator Trent Lott of Mississippi in 1992. Pickering was soon immersed in telecommunications issues such as cable-television competition and wireless spectrum auctions.

It was topical work for a senator from Mississippi, which was something of a hotbed of telco activity. American Cable Systems, the company that became Comcast, started in Tupelo, Mississippi. WorldCom, which changed its name to MCI after acquiring MCI in 1997, was founded in Jackson, Mississippi. And SkyTel, which pioneered two-way texting, was founded in Clinton, Mississippi.

"We're not only the birthplace of blues, but the birthplace of texting," Pickering says.

His stint for Lott culminated in his work on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the first and last major update to telecommunications law since 1934. The act deregulated large swaths of the industry and relaxed media ownership rules. It's been criticized for paving the way for more consolidation in media and telecommunications. At the time, Pickering saw it as a chance to promote competition by removing legal barriers that kept companies out of the pay-TV, local telephone, and long-distance markets.