Senate Expected To Sign Off on Pai, Rosenworcel Nominations This Year
The Senate is likely to approve two FCC nominations by year-end, probably alongside many other pending nominations, commission officials and industry lobbyists said Tuesday. President Barack Obama late Monday as expected nominated Jessica Rosenworcel (CD April 19 p2), telecom aide to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Ajit Pai (CD June 20 p1), a communications litigator for Jenner & Block and former FCC staffer. Rosenworcel, a Democrat, would replace Commissioner Michael Copps who must leave the agency when the current session of Congress ends. Pai would take the Republican seat left vacant by Meredith Baker, who left the commission earlier this year for a job at Comcast’s NBCUniversal.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
A Senate Commerce Committee hearing on FCC nominations is expected soon, but the exact date is unknown. “I would expect a hearing in the near future,” said a spokesman for committee member Dean Heller, R-Nev. The committee itself declined to comment on timing. An FCC official and several industry lobbyists suggested the nominations could be added to the agenda of a Nov. 15 Commerce Committee hearing on FTC nominations. But Senate aides said they doubted Rosenworcel and Pai would appear then because that wouldn’t leave much time to prepare. Committee members generally meet with nominees prior to their hearing.
Neither candidate is considered controversial in the telecom world, lobbyists and officials told us. Each are seen as deliberative, technocratic, not particularly ideological and unlikely to take huge risks with their pulpits, lobbyists and officials said. Virtually every telecom-related group issued a ritual statement of support for both nominees.
The FCC nominations seem likely to end up part of a large package of nominations at the end of the legislative calendar this year, multiple telecom industry lobbyists said. The Senate usually acts on such a package in mid- to late-December, a broadcast industry lobbyist said. It’s very likely that senators will pass the FCC nominations by year end because they won’t want to leave the commission with only three members, said Vince Jesaitis, government relations director of the Information Technology Industry Council. A telecom industry lobbyist predicted the FCC nominations “will end up as part of larger package of nominations that the Senate approves at the end of this session.” Because Congress has until Dec. 23 to pass the debt bill by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, “Congress will likely stay in session that late,” the lobbyist said.
Not everyone thinks approval this year is a sure thing, given a limited calendar. The Senate could take the nominations up this year, but with only 15-20 legislative working days left it could get pushed to first quarter next year, a GOP Senate aide said.
Republicans are not expected to block the nominations, industry lobbyists said. Political roadblocks are unlikely because a Democrat is being paired with a Republican and both parties seemed supportive of the picks when they were floated over the summer, Jesaitis said. While there’s always a chance Republicans could try to block the larger nominations bundle, big nomination packages historically are designed to satisfy both political parties, a broadcast industry lobbyist said.
Rockefeller praised the nomination of his aide. “As Commissioner Copps once said when Jessica left the FCC to come to the Senate: ‘Their gain is my loss,’ and today, I couldn’t agree more.” Rosenworcel “was the center of activity on the Hill for telecom policy,” former White House adviser Susan Crawford said. “Her grasp of detail and calm affect impressed me in a vortex of competing interests.” Rosenworcel was instrumental in the DTV transition and the broadband stimulus legislation, Crawford said.
Pai is “going to look at everything really carefully and methodically,” said University of Chicago Law School classmate Steven Duffield. “He’s a very good lawyer and he gets along with everybody on both sides of the aisle.” Duffield also worked with Pai when the two were staffers to Hill Republicans. Another former law school classmate, Adam Bonin, said: “I would describe him as someone who is careful, someone who cares about facts, who cares about details and someone who has his own core beliefs, but I would not call him an ideologue.”
If the pair are confirmed before the end of the year, they'll likely face questions on how to reform the Lifeline and Link-Up programs. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has said those two programs are likely to come up soon on the commission’s agenda (CD Oct 28 p1).