Friday, February 27, 2009 1:20 PM

Former Rep. Allen to Head Up Publishing Group

Bookmark this: The Association of American Publishers has chosen former Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, as its new president and CEO. Allen will replace another former representative (and fellow Harvard Law grad) Pat Schroeder, D-Colo. He'll start the first week in April.

Allen said he's excited about his new job, which will allow him to shuttle between his home in Maine and the association's policy shop in D.C. The group, based in New York City, represents most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies.

"The industry right now is facing all sorts of complicated issues related to copyright and digitization, education, free speech, all of which are very important to the publishers," he told National Journal.

Allen, a former Rhodes scholar, had served in Congress starting in 1996. Last year, he gave up his seat to unsuccessfully challenge Maine's Republican Senate incumbent Sen. Susan Collins. He served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Budget Committee, Armed Services Committee, and Government Reform Committee.

Although he didn't handle much in the way of publishing-related legislation, he said "My plan is to plunge into this job and do it as well as I can."

One pressing issue, Allen said, is making sure writers and publishers are compensated when their work is transmitted online.

"This whole industry is changing and what's vitally important is to make sure the people who write and publish are protected," Allen said. "They should be compensated for what they do in contributing to the civic life of the country."

Schroeder, a onetime presidential candidate, said in a press release that she'll depart on May 1 to sail "uncharted waters." She added: "I'm still in the process of composing my life and while there's always a certain amount of sadness at leave-taking, this is the right time for me to move on."

Since leaving the Hill, Allen said he is "doing some writing of my own about the twelve years that I served," but wouldn't go so far as to call his jottings an autobiography. "'Doing some writing' is really all that it would make sense to say," he said.

Allen will also have some dough to work with. In National Journal's most recent salary survey published in February 2008, the Association reported it paid Schroeder $464,178 in compensation, benefits and allowances.
                                                                                                             --Jeannette J. Lee