Personnel Changes at a Kerry FTC Wouldn’t Alter Enforcement
If presidential candidate John Kerry (D) wins Nov. 2, the FTC would shift its approach to antitrust enforcement, many sources said. Most sources agreed Kerry would continue the Commission’s stance on spam and Internet fraud enforcement because it’s important and politically popular. “Any changes that come will come on the margins,” said Janet McDavid, a former FTC advisor and someone whose name has come up as a potential Kerry-appointee to the Commission. “Look at any given vote -- it’s 5-0” for FTC enforcement actions over the last few years, said a Commission spokeswoman, pointing to the bipartisan unity that has become the norm recently.
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One former FTC commissioner said personnel would be sure to change, likely very fast, under Kerry. “I don’t think [Deborah] Majoras would stay, and Orson [Swindle]’s probably getting ready to leave, too,” he said. Several sources, however, suggested new Comr. Jonathan Leibowitz would stay a while - one said “he thinks it’s the most important job he’s ever had” - but many acknowledge that Leibowitz angered some Democrats in his previous position at MPAA. Another former commissioner added that current Comr. Pamela Jones Harbour may be departing soon, and former FTC Consumer Protections Bureau Dir. Jody Bernstein would be a frontrunner for her spot. Swindle wouldn’t say whether he would remain at the commission but added that Bernstein “did some remarkable work with privacy issues” in her time at the commission.
The 2nd former commissioner suggested that the FTC would see a return “to the Clinton years, economically,” which would spur a wave of mergers, and any Democratic commission would “take a very close look if it [any merger] is media.” Another ex-commissioner said “the FTC has had a bipartisan agreement on the importance of controlling media consolidation but the current Administration differs from that agreement.”
Republicans have been “less energetic than Democrats on attacking media consolidation,” at the FTC, and a Kerry victory in Nov. would probably change that, according to former Comr. Christine Varney, currently an antitrust litigator and campaigning aggressively for John Kerry. So aggressively, in fact, that Varney claimed to have “no idea” that she was named by several sources as a possible chairman should Kerry win. One former commissioner called Varney “well-connected” and said her antitrust track record and unflagging support for Kerry might land her the job. Varney responded: “I am so focused on getting John Kerry elected right now, for a variety of reasons, so I haven’t even thought about that.” Varney did say that mergers are “way down, because of the economy,” and agreed that the FTC would face a significant increase in antitrust enforcement as the economy improved no matter who wins. “Democrats are less reluctant to intervene… in private sector activity that might restrain trade,” she said. Varney also praised the current Republican-led FTC on consumer protection, and she predicted the spam and phishing enforcement initiatives and enforcement actions wouldn’t change much.
That sentiment was mostly echoed by Swindle, who said “due to the very fine efforts of Bob Pitofsky and Tim Muris, the FTC has reached a good equilibrium point… I think the commission is always at its best when it stays out of political inclinations.” Only the most technically complicated cases produce any disagreements, Swindle said, because economics now is so important in FTC rulemaking. The “professional and decent” nonpolitical employees make the FTC anyway, he added, noting they'll remain no matter whose administration appoints the next chairman. - Ian Martinez