What Should We Expect from New FCC?

The Federal Communications Commission is contemplating policy that could help increase the level of minority media ownership. Right now, it’s down to three commissioners. The two nominees for the position, while apparently bringing diversity to the FCC itself, might not, based on their testimony before the Senate and their work backgrounds, bring much more to the FCC in terms of speeding up the policy implementation process.

Last fall, President Barack Obama nominated Jessica Rosenworcel and Ajit Varadaraj Pai to serve as the FCC’s newest members. Ms. Rosenworcel is the Senior Communications Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, working for Senator Jay Rockefeller IV since 2009, and previously for Senator Daniel K. Inouye from 2007 to 2008. Before joining the Committee, she worked at the Federal Communications Commission from 1999 to 2007, serving as Legal Advisor and then Senior Legal Advisor to Commissioner Michael J. Copps (2003-2007), Legal Counsel to the Bureau Chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau (2002-2003), and as an Attorney-Advisor in the Policy Division of the Common Carrier Bureau (1999-2002). From 1997 to 1999, Ms. Rosenworcel was a communications associate at Drinker Biddle and Reath.

Mr. Pai is a Partner in the Litigation Department of Jenner & Block LLP. Immediately prior to joining Jenner & Block, Mr. Pai worked in the Office of the General Counsel at the Federal Communications Commission, where he served as Deputy General Counsel, Associate General Counsel, and Special Advisor to the General Counsel. Previously, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights and as Senior Counsel at the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. Pai also served as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, and as Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications Inc. He began his career as a law clerk to Judge Martin L.C. Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, and then as an Honors Program trial attorney in the Telecommunications Task Force at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.

The nominees’ backgrounds are impressive, but the question is whether that translates into into a voice that fills the vacuum left by former FCC member Michael J. Copps. Copps, who resigned last year from the FCC, has been described as the lone wolf crying in the wilderness of media ownership. He was not silent on what he determined as one of the contributing factors of a dearth of minority and woman ownership: consolidation.

Attacks to any FCC diversity efforts have been compounded in the past by House Republican attempts to cut the budgets of the FCC’s Offices of Workplace Diversity and Communications Business Opportunities.

In addition, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation didn’t seem overwhelmingly concerned about diversity in media ownership when Mr. Pai and Ms. Rosenworcel appeared before the committee in November 2011. In addition to the lack of minority diversity on the Senate committee itself, only one passing comment, attributed to committee chairman Senator Jay Rockefeller (D_WV) was made. The nominees, if they had any comments on minority media ownership diversity, blew their opportunity to make any right then and there.

While it may be too early to tell, we seem to be on track to the same level of lip service the FCC has been giving to the issue of minority media ownership over the past two decades.

Alton Drew is a political economist and commentator. In addition to being a contributing writer at Politic365.com, Mr. Drew blogs at Law and Politics of Broadband, Paying for Dodd Frank, and The American Centrist. Follow him on Twitter @altondrew, become a friend at https://www.facebook.com/alton.drew, or visit his website at www.altondrew.com.

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