Tom Stieghorst
The cruise industry has had pretty clear sailing in Congress since 2014, the last time the Democrats were in charge.
Before 2014, the industry faced its nemesis, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, on what seemed like a weekly basis. The West Virginia Democrat lambasted the industry as unsafe, secretive, greedy, cavalier about consumer complaints and unaccountable when things go wrong.
He used his perch as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee to push his Cruise Passenger Protection Act of 2013 in a series of scripted hearings featuring a parade of victimized consumers.
The cruise industry wasn't sorry to see the Republicans gain a Senate majority in 2014 or to see Rockefeller retire.
No one has really replaced Rockefeller as an antagonist to the cruise industry in the Senate. Sen. Bill Nelson, the ranking minority member on the Commerce Committee, is both part of the moderate wing of the Democratic party and from a state, Florida, with a strong economic interest in a healthy cruise industry.
With congressional midterm elections a little more than two months away, what are the chances that Nelson will take the helm of the Commerce Committee next January?
As it happens, Nelson is part of an outsized contingent of Democratic senators up for reelection this year. The Democrats are defending 26 Senate seats in 2018, compared to just 9 for the Republicans.
Nelson's challenger is multimillionaire Rick Scott, who has spent the past eight years as Florida's governor. Their match-up is one of eight rated as "toss up" by the respected Cook Report political newsletter.
Of those eight, five involve incumbent Democrats and three incumbent Republicans. With eight seats in play and Republicans holding a thin 51-49 advantage, there's more than enough room for Democrats to take control.
But what would happen if Nelson is washed out of power, even as the Democrats are washed in? Then the Commerce panel would be in search of a new leader.
A taste of what might be in store for the travel industry can be seen in Sen. Edward Markey's request for information earlier this month from the travel insurance providers AIG Travel Guard and Allianz.
Markey (D-Mass.), a minority member of the Commerce Committee, is seeking a laundry list of data on claims, premiums, policies sold, loss ratios and revenues by sales channel, in what is shaping up as an investigation of airline and OTA travel insurance sales.
Markey has yet to introduce legislation, and as the 40th most senior Democrat in the Senate, there's no chance he'll be committee chairman next year.
But Markey's demands are reminiscent of the style that Rockefeller brought to cruise industry oversight and a reminder of what the bigger players in the travel industry may be in for if the four years of Republican control of the Senate come to an end in November.