Clyburn as 'Loyal Opposition' Amid Early Disagreements With Pai

“Commissioner Clyburn's natural instinct is to look for areas of common ground, but by no means will she allow that to compromise on her core values when it comes to fighting for consumers and competition,” said Interactive Advertising Bureau Executive Vice President-Public Policy Dave Grimaldi, who was Clyburn’s chief of staff from 2011 to 2014.

“Commissioner Clyburn and I have long worked together on a bipartisan basis on many issues to benefit consumers, including expanding broadband deployment and combating robocalls, and I look forward to continuing to do so," Pai said in a statement to us. "That’s one of the reasons why, in my third week in office, I took to heart one of her suggestions for process reform and implemented it immediately.” Pai credited Clyburn for suggesting a process reform under which the FCC will begin issuing fact sheets summarizing the details of items on circulation along with releasing their full text (see 1702070072).

A commissioner in the FCC’s minority is in a very different position than one in the majority, said numerous former eighth-floor officials. A commissioner in the majority must by necessity “play second fiddle” to the chairman, a former Clyburn aide said. In exchange for going along with the chairman’s plans, commissioners in the majority know they have a chance to have policies they support approved, said a former eighth-floor aide. That motivates them to avoid rocking the boat with copious interviews and inflammatory statements, the aide said. Clyburn's office declined to comment for this story.

Clyburn's ‘Megaphone’

Since a commissioner in the minority knows there's little chance of many of her favored policies making it into regulations, the aide said, she has more freedom to speak openly. Others concurred.

Now that Clyburn is the sole Democrat, she has “a loud megaphone” to provide an alternative narrative to what the majority is saying, said a former eighth-floor official. That’s analogous to Pai’s own actions in the minority, when he was known for his barbed dissenting statements and releases on Wheeler’s rulings.

Feb. 3 saw Clyburn issue two statements attacking Pai and his policies.

Clyburn called Pai’s Feb. 3 mass reversal of multiple bureau-level decisions a "Friday News Dump," and said that by providing little notice to her office and releasing so little information on the reasoning behind the decisions, he was flying in the face of his own transparency push. “It is disappointing to see this Chairman engage in the same actions for which he criticized the prior Chairman,” Clyburn wrote then. She called the reversals "‘take out the trash day,’" the name of an episode of the West Wing TV show.

“Those were rather significant actions that called for a response,” said former Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps, now with Common Cause. “Her reaction was quite appropriate.” The same day, Clyburn also attacked on substance FCC staff under Pai rescinding Lifeline status to nine small companies: "Rather than working to close the digital divide, this action widens the gap.”

'By Herself'

Providing a strong opposition to the majority party isn't a new role for commissioners in the minority, but Clyburn has the rare burden of having to do it on her own, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Francisco Montero. Several officials pointed to the effective minority party “road show” conducted by then-Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps under Chairman Michael Powell. But they were “a dynamic duo,” Montero said. Pai had to go it alone briefly during Clyburn’s stint as interim chairwoman, but was soon augmented by Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, and the duo began holding opposition news conferences under Wheeler. In his first news conference as chairman, Pai said he missed having O’Rielly there to help him.

“Clyburn has to do it all by herself,” Montero said. President Donald Trump's administration has many appointments to make and a lot on its plate, Montero said, and with Pai already installed as a permanent FCC chairman, filling the additional commissioner spots isn't likely to be a high priority for the White House, Montero said.

Experienced at serving in the minority himself, Copps said he expects that Clyburn will act “as the conscience of the public interest.” Clyburn is gifted at getting along with people, and that could make the prospects for a more united FCC better, Copps said. If the Pai FCC continues reversing the actions of Democrat Tom Wheeler’s commission, Clyburn will have to serve as a counterbalancing voice, “so the American people know what’s going on,” he said. “I think she will handle it with grace," said McDowell. “She will celebrate those issues where she can get consensus, she will stand strong and dissent on issues where she can’t.”

It’s unclear now how much collaboration will take place between Pai and Clyburn, officials said. As a commissioner, Pai frequently urged compromise and against party-line votes, and Clyburn said last week she, too, favors a more united FCC (see 1702070072). “I start at the 50-yard line," she said. Pai’s recent direct actions against FCC programs that Clyburn supported and her riposte with a statement accusing Pai of abandoning his own principals (see 1702030070 are seen as unlikely to foster compromise between the two, officials said. Pai and Clyburn also have had very public clashes in the past, as over the cancelled critical information needs (CIN) newsroom study, a project strongly backed by Clyburn that Pai characterized in an opinion piece as an attempt to influence the news (see 1402120054). In a recent speech at an NAB event, Clyburn said she was ”tarred and feathered” over the CIN study.

Many former eighth-floor officials said they believe Clyburn is likely to seek compromise on the issues she cares about the most, such as minority ownership, universal broadband access and inmate calling -- if a compromise will help advance those issues. Clyburn “doesn’t have an ego,” a former aide said, and won’t let personal conflicts interfere with her work as commissioner. Former eighth-floor officials repeatedly cited Clyburn’s personal dedication to the FCC taking action on certain causes. Some in the public interest world wanted Clyburn to step down to leave the incoming administration without a quorum, but she stayed because she sees her role at the FCC as an important duty even in the minority role, said a former eighth-floor official. Though that official told us “being in the minority sucks,” McDowell told us the opposite, having been in both the FCC majority and minority at different points. “Being in the minority can be a lot of fun,” said McDowell.