FCC Nominees’ Ties to Hill Could Help and Hurt Genachowski

Of the four current FCC members, only Michael Copps, who is leaving, had extensive service as a Hill staffer. Copps was former chief of staff to Sen. Fritz Hollings, a South Carolina Democrat, who retired from the Senate in 2005. Commissioner Robert McDowell was a longtime legislative lobbyist and knows the Hill well, but Genachowski and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn came to the commission without substantial Hill experience. Genachowski worked for the House as a young lawyer, including a stint as an aide to then-Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in the early 1990s.

Rosenworcel, in contrast, has been a top aide to Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., since 2007. Pai spent almost four years on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee, ending in 2007, where he worked for former Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. Pai has close ties to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., through McConnell’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rohit Kumar. Both nominees also have worked at the FCC, Rosenworcel as an aide to Copps and Pai as deputy general counsel.

Pai and Rosenworcel’s experience at the FCC, on Capitol Hill and as attorneys makes each potential new commissioner the “triple threat,” said Jared Weaver, a lobbyist with the Alpine Group. That unique perspective has been lacking at the FCC, Weaver said. Pai and Rosenworcel can skip the “learning curve” that new commissioners face in dealing with the Hill because they already understand the various personalities in Congress, he said.

"With Congress being the FCC’s overseer, it helps a commissioner tremendously to have ties to Capitol Hill,” said a government official. “Being able to bring personal credibility, as well as understanding of the process and pressures unique to Congress, adds tremendous value to the their toolbox of abilities."

"The chairman needs all the help he can get with mending fences with Congress over the Open Internet rules the agency passed last Christmas,” said Information Technology & Innovation Foundation Senior Fellow Richard Bennett. “After Congress refused to pass a net neutrality measure, the FCC forced the action by adopting its own rules on an uncertain legal basis. Lingering animosity is making it hard for Congress to grant the permissive incentive auction authority to the FCC that’s vital to relieving the nation’s looming spectrum crunch. Hopefully, the new commissioners can help restore the trust that’s vital to a good working relationship.”

"Both the new commissioners know people on the Hill and they have friends and relationships already,” said one longtime telecom lobbyist. “They'll have a little thicker skin. They won’t be as jittery to respond immediately to concerns expressed by the House or the Senate.” A top telecom attorney and former Senate aide said Rosenworcel’s and Pai’s ties to the Hill could prove a mixed blessing for Genachowski. “I could see it going either way,” the lawyer said. “If they're willing to go to their allies and friends on the Hill and smooth things over, that’s helpful. But sometimes it plays another way -- I have my independent power base and I'm playing that back against the chairman. … Like all things in Washington that pull on politics, it can go in any direction.”

Having commissioners with Hill background will help Genachowski “a lot” in dealing with lawmakers, said a telecom industry official. Pai and Rosenworcel could influence Genachowski to work more cooperatively with Congress, the lobbyist said, noting that Genachowski had no recent legislative experience coming in, and has at times struggled overcoming conflicts with the Hill, such as in the current fight between the commission and Grassley, the lobbyist said. A public interest group official said the two new commissioners’ Hill ties “can help give the chairman an early warning system about developing problems.”

But other observers said the net effect of the two new commissioners is likely to be of only limited importance long term. “When people say the relationships are bad with the Hill I think they mean the relationship is bad between the chairman and the Hill,” one lawyer said. “That’s usually what that means.”

Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld said the key for any FCC is how well the chairman does cultivating Congress. “Relations with the Hill tend to be much more centered on the chairman,” Feld said. “The whole thing that Grassley is upset about is not getting [LightSquared] documents, which is something that is very much controlled by the chairman’s office. I think there’s a sense that while other commissioners can certainly play a role with regard to certain issues … as a general matter the Hill tends to treat the chairman as being responsible for the agency, and with good reason. I don’t think having two members with good relations with the Hill is really going to affect the overall relationship between the FCC and the Hill.”

"In the end, I think it really does boil down to what the chairman is proposing and how he is being perceived,” said a longtime telecom lobbyist. Next year is an election year, he noted. “If the Hill -- Democrats and Republicans -- can make some policy scores or hits for back home consumption they'll do it."

Genachowski’s current relationship with the Hill is “not that great,” especially on the House side, where lawmakers have been hitting the commission hard on recent decisions like net neutrality and changing the spectrum screen for the AT&T/T-Mobile review, said a longtime telecom lobbyist. The House’s current emphasis on FCC process reform seems to be a manifestation of that confrontational relationship, the lobbyist said. Senate Democrats have been more supportive of Genachowski, but not quite “gushing” either, the lobbyist said.

The FCC is a chairman-driven agency, so adding Pai and Rosenworcel isn’t likely to change the dynamic between Genachowski and the Hill, said another telecom lobbyist. But the new commissioners can help with the day-to-day back and forth with the Hill, the lobbyist said.

Free State Foundation President Randolph May questioned how much impact the new commissioners will have. “Frankly, I don’t think that the prior Hill experience of Pai and Rosenworcel will be a very important factor in determining the relationship between the agency and Congress,” he said. “I think, especially during the coming year, the substantive positions taken by the Commission on key issues will be more determinative. And I do think the fact that the new commissioners come in with both real substantive knowledge of the issues, as well as some relevant Hill experience, is an overall positive for the commission."

Historically, FCC chairmen going into their fourth year have had a “fractious” relationship with the Hill, another telecom lobbyist said. Kevin Martin and Michael Powell each got into battles with Congress in their fourth year, for example, he said. The LightSquared controversy has already put Genachowski in hot water with many legislators and the matter is still unresolved going into 2012, the lobbyist said.

Several lobbyists noted that Genachowski has actually fared better on the whole than Martin and Powell did in building ties to key members of Congress. The Commerce Committee under Rockefeller has been relatively friendly, they note, and has yet to call Genachowski in for an oversight hearing. Powell in contrast had an acrimonious relationship with former Commerce Chairman Hollings, who once told him during a hearing, “I think you'd be a wonderful executive vice president of a chamber of commerce, but not a chairman of a regulatory commission.” Martin faced a hostile House and Senate. In his last year as chairman the House Commerce Committee issued a scathing review of his chairmanship, alleging “egregious abuses of power” on his watch (CD Dec 10/08 p1).

"Genachowski has actually been more successful as an FCC chairman pushing specific legislation -- namely the legislative auction legislation -- than many other FCC chairs,” an agency official said. “Having said that, the office of FCC chairman is a huge target for Congressional nay-sayers, but he has received less vehement criticism than some recent chairmen.”