Editing Chip Pickering (section)

===Early years===
Pickering served as a [[Southern Baptist]] missionary in [[Hungary]], after the Hungarian government ceased its persecution of religious believers.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

In 1989, President [[George H. W. Bush]] appointed Pickering as a [[United States Department of Agriculture|Department of Agriculture]] liaison to the former European Communist countries.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

Pickering served as a staff member of [[United States Senate|Senator]] [[Trent Lott]] between 1992 and 1996.<ref name=":0" /> He helped shape the [[Telecommunications Act of 1996]], the first major overhaul of US telecoms law since 1934.<ref>{{cite web |title=Profile in Public Service - Chip Pickering |url=http://www.stennis.gov/spotlights/spotlights_show.htm?doc_id=839904 |website=stennis.gov |access-date=June 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806214601/http://www.stennis.gov/spotlights/spotlights_show.htm?doc_id=839904 |archive-date=August 6, 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref> After a  year at the [[U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce|Senate Commerce Committee]], Pickering ran for Congress.<ref>{{Cite web
|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/charles_pickering/400319 |title=Charles "Chip" Pickering Jr., former Representative for Mississippi's 3rd Congressional District - GovTrack.us |website=GovTrack.us |access-date=February 26, 2016}}</ref> He defeated eight other Republicans in the primary and won the general election over Democrat [[John Arthur Eaves Jr.]] with 61 percent of the vote.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nash |first1=Jere |last2=Taggart |first2=Andy |title=Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976-2008 |edition=second |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |date=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=avs12QS3EZ4C |isbn=9781604733570 |pages=257–258}}</ref>