Wheeler's Relationship With Congress Goes Beyond the Hearing Room

Wheeler has run the gamut of Hill scrutiny since being sworn in as chairman in November 2013. Lawmakers summoned him to testify seven times this year, all appearances after the agency's 3-2 approval of the net neutrality order. Wheeler rebuffed one demand from the House Oversight Committee that he testify in February before the net neutrality vote. He testified four times in 2014 and once in December 2013 after assuming control.

“They tortured him with hearings,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. “But I thought he was very professional, he knew what he was talking about, presented well, he handled dumb questions kindly but thoroughly, so I thought he was good.” Partisanship causes challenges for Wheeler and real hostility from some Republicans, Lofgren said: “Some of my colleagues hate the president so much that anybody who has been appointed by him can do no right.”

Net neutrality embittered some congressional Republicans, unhappy with how Wheeler comported himself during the proceeding, they told us. Wheeler stayed in contact with Senate Democratic leadership during the net neutrality debates, showcased in last year’s emails with David Krone, a former cable industry lobbyist serving as chief of staff to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

“I’m somewhat jaded by the experience with net neutrality where he kind of told us to go pound sand, so I’m probably not a good person to ask about his relationship with Capitol Hill,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., who hopes to legislate with Democrats on the issue but believes the FCC and White House have lobbied against him. “I assume his relationship with Democrats up here is better, but in terms of working with us, at least on that issue, we got the stiff arm.”

“I’m really disappointed in Chairman Wheeler” and “how he’s approached the job,” agreed Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., also a member of Commerce. “In terms of the regulation of the Internet, he exhibited, I would say, no [White House] independence.” Johnson is investigating whether the White House unduly influenced the development of the net neutrality order, “but it’s always like pulling teeth” getting information, Johnson lamented. “It’s just the bare minimum of a response, put in a letter, which prompts other letters.”

'Historic Figure'?

Congressional Democrats often praised Wheeler’s chairmanship and see in his balanced approach to Congress a skilled operator at work, as Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who chaired the Commerce Committee last Congress, used to call him approvingly.

“He’s very savvy, he has a long history of working with the Congress that predates his time as the FCC chairman and I think it shows in how effective he’s become,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. “He has become an historic figure in telecommunications. I think his leadership on the E-rate, on net neutrality, on merger policy has clearly stamped him as one of the great FCC chairmen. He and I are very close allies on many of the issues that he has been working on.”

“It helps with oversight to have someone who’s not playing hide the ball,” said Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who finds Wheeler receptive to working with lawmakers. “I find him to be straightforward and smart. We’ve had a good dialogue -- sometimes we agree, sometimes we disagree, but I think he’s done a good job of staying in communication and articulating his views.” Wheeler “likes to engage,” Schatz said.

“I found him to be a breath of fresh air,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., praising Wheeler as “open, forthright, and forthcoming and very informative” overall. “I agree with many of his policies but he also has a very intelligent and insightful approach in dealing with Congress. That’s part of his job.” Blumenthal acknowledged the partisan intensity on big-ticket telecom issues: “It’s immensely challenging. He has one of the hardest jobs in government because the interests are clashing, very contentious.” Wheeler has to navigate a path that “makes sense for the public interest,” Blumenthal believes.

Some former FCC chairmen lauded Wheeler’s handling of what they see as a thorny aspect of the job. “Tom Wheeler is a long-time student of American government, and he’s deeply respectful of Congress’s vital role,” said Julius Genachowski, an ex-chairman also under the Obama administration who now works as a Carlyle Group managing director, in a statement. “There’s always a degree of tension between Congress and the FCC. It’s natural; indeed, it’s healthy in a democracy that relies on robust debate and discussion.”

Wheeler’s relationship with the Hill “is extremely good and very consistent with other good relationships in history where the chair is in one party and Congress is in another,” said Reed Hundt, a chairman during Clinton administration years and now CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital. “The more you do, the more oversight. The one way to avoid the hearings is to do nothing. But that’s not Tom Wheeler.” Wheeler embraces what Hundt judges the three lessons of living under congressional oversight: Never lose your cool; never take it personally; and never think you can get equal time.

“The key is, frankly, getting up there,” said Dick Wiley, a Republican FCC chairman during the 1970s contending with a Democratic Congress. “The hearings were just the tip of the iceberg. … The key thing is the personal touch.” Wiley has stayed active in Washington telecom and chairs the Wiley Rein communications practice. He emphasized the importance of reaching out to lawmakers and respecting the role of Congress, notably committee leadership but also knowing that every member was important. Wiley pointed to the value of “listening mode” for FCC chairmen and said “it clearly helped a lot” to cultivate informal relationships with the Hill. “I would go up there and see them,” Wiley said, saying he and other FCC chairmen also relied on a team of staffers to facilitate those relationships. “‘No surprises’ was my theory.”

Wheeler's Outreach Style

Wheeler immediately faced Hill scrutiny upon assuming the chairmanship, pleasing lawmakers with his announcement of ending the quantile regression analysis formulation of USF support and angering others by advancing an item that proposed to permit cellphone use on airplanes. Wheeler’s style at oversight hearings is punctuated with moments of folksiness and frequent vernacular. He often plays a conciliatory role, repeatedly saying he will defer to the will of Congress, and hearkens back to his experience as a business executive and his desire for efficient operations. When asked why he didn’t release his net neutrality order before a commission vote, Wheeler’s first response was, “Oh golly, sir.”

Wheeler embraces smaller moments of connection with lawmakers outside the hearing rooms that some see as essential to navigating Congress.

His gestures include visiting distant states, such as Thune’s South Dakota or Alaska, represented in the last Congress by then-Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat, and visiting a bipartisan House rural telecom working group. Wheeler and Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who was ranking member of the House Commerce Committee last Congress, both had mentioned meetings and phone conversations with one another. When the net neutrality order circulated, Wheeler privately contacted relevant Hill offices, both Republican and Democratic. In one small personal touch, Wheeler crossed out “Congresswoman” in an April 2014 letter greeting to Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and handwrote “Doris” in addition to the scribbled line, referring to spectrum policy work: “Thanks for your leadership with our government friends.” Following the AWS-3 spectrum auction revenue results, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., sent a laudatory text message to Wheeler. The auction raised $41.3 billion in net bids, a record and exceeding many expectations.

“We have a very professional relationship and aren’t afraid to agree to disagree when we disagree, and when we agree and get good things done, we share in that as well,” Walden said. “We did a joint op-ed on the AWS-3. I did text him. … And there are other issues I’ve been disappointed in his position; he’s probably been disappointed in mine. He’s certainly got a tough job to do. But I do think, regardless of who’s current chairman, we need to do more to make the FCC itself more accessible to the public in its operation.” Walden has prioritized overhauling FCC processes, which he sees as a first step as part of reauthorizing the agency and revamping the Communications Act this year.

“I’ve brought members and the chairman together to have discussions and such and I think that’s very important -- it’s not just for me, it’s for the members, so they can have good discussions, ask questions, give the chairman the opportunity to chat about whatever he wishes to,” said House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. “I’m the team leader.” Waxman’s relationship with Wheeler was “more one-on-one, not for the members, see,” Eshoo added. “But I think it’s my responsibility to help create that for members.”

Matsui has been acquainted with Wheeler “socially,” she said of the personal greeting, citing Wheeler’s longtime experience in Washington. “So I’ve run into him a few times,” she said. “Obviously, we know each other.” Markey, who was involved in telecom as a House lawmaker for many years, also knew Wheeler from before he became FCC chairman. “Oh yeah, yeah, I’ve known him for many years,” Markey said of Wheeler, who formerly headed CTIA and NCTA. Others such as Blumenthal and Johnson say they haven't dealt with Wheeler before he led the FCC, and some lawmakers of both parties, including Lofgren and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said that despite official communication, they lack any personal relationship with Wheeler. “He was in my office a couple times,” recalled Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with Democrats and isn't a member of the Commerce or Judiciary Committee. “I’ve met him.” An FCC spokeswoman declined comment on Wheeler's relationship with lawmakers.

“I thought he was up there quite a bit,” former Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., remembered. “He’s probably been above average on that. … All I had to do was call him.” Pryor, now with Venable, chaired the Communications Subcommittee during Wheeler’s first year leading the FCC and spent a decade on the Commerce Committee. “He was good at giving a head’s up if something was coming down the pike,” Pryor said, describing a familiar relationship despite Senate Commerce never holding a hearing with Wheeler testifying during Pryor’s year of overlap. “We went to dinner once or twice.”

“He’s a very confident individual,” Matsui said. “He has knowledge of the industry from all sides. And so I think he has a healthy respect, let’s put it that way. I think he’s got a healthy respect because he has been on all sides and had to interact with Congress. … He clearly understands, I guess, how to work with different people.”

Public Beatings, Private Friendships

“I go by the philosophy that up here, it’s not personal, it’s just business,” said Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., who leads a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval to dismantle Wheeler’s signature net neutrality order. Collins worries that White House pressure tilted Wheeler into supporting Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband and that partisan politics followed naturally. That partisanship becomes “a very real factor when you come up here and you seem to be at least not having consistent stories, I think’s the best way to put it,” Collins said of what he considered Wheeler’s contradictory statements about Title II this year compared to last. “That was some of the issue that took place in [Wheeler and his aides] selling something that frankly they’re having trouble selling themselves.”

Other Republicans credited Wheeler for his focus on Congress. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know him,” said Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., chairman of the Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee. “I think that net neutrality issue and just kind of all of a sudden thrusting that upon the scene has created the situation where he’s certainly at odds with some. And him having to fight that battle.” Boozman chaired a recent hearing with Wheeler and Commissioner Ajit Pai, a Republican, and Boozman was “pleased with -- you take away net neutrality and some of these other things -- he and [Pai] actually had quite a few things in common.”

“He works hard at developing and maintaining relationships with members of the Senate,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., a member of Financial Services and Commerce. “It’s one of the things I think’s been missing for a while in the Congress, particularly in the Senate when we don’t do appropriation bills -- little need for an agency head to spend time with members of the Appropriations Committee or even members of the authorizing committee. It seems to me that Chairman Wheeler’s made a decision that he’s going to invest time with members of our subcommittee and members of Congress. … It seems to me that Chairman Wheeler enjoys the opportunity to have a conversation about policies at the FCC when he’s in front of the committee.”

“You take public beatings and you have private friendships,” Hundt observed, saying Wheeler makes smaller personal gestures to lawmakers “all the time.” The necessary private lines of communication between Wheeler and the Hill thrive, Hundt asserted: “They like him.”

Hundt recounted the push and pull of lawmaker relationships during his own years. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Commerce Committee leader, had called Hundt: “He said, ‘Look, publicly I’m going to tell you you’re wrong. I’m going to tell you you’re wrong lots of times.’” But McCain told Hundt to give him a call if it ever became too much. The late Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, assisted Hundt after a private conversation over Hundt’s fears of spectrum auction bid rigging by sending a public letter warning that Stevens feared such rigging. Even the now-retired Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a member of Hundt’s own party, “said terrible things about me all the time” and later acknowledged the “beating” to Hundt at a dinner party and confided his reasoning: “You need to grow thick skin.” Wiley recalled “very good relationships” with the Democratic and Republican lawmakers overseeing him, despite a lot of dialogue on children’s TV issues during his years.

“It is impossible to make everyone happy in that job,” Pryor observed. “You’re not there to make everyone happy. … These companies are very competitive and very good at what they do.” When considering Republican lawmaker outrage over net neutrality, Pryor said “it takes two to tango” but praised Wheeler’s outreach, saying Wheeler was open to sitting down with any senator, Republican or Democrat, “within reason.” FCC chairmen “pick up some scars” during their years, and the Hill is one real challenging aspect to that job, Pryor said.

“The more of a stake [lawmakers] have in these policies and the deeper and broader the understanding, the better off we all are,” Eshoo reflected, stressing the importance of comfort level and informal settings. “I believe in life, that relationships matter. ... That you know one another, you’ve sat and talked, so it’s not just a relationship from the dais to the witness table. That’s formal, it’s a legal undertaking, so that’s not sitting and chatting, you know. I’m a strong believer in that, building relationships, and out of that good things can come. … You have to understand things before you can accept and reject them.”