Starks' Departure Won't Have Big Implications for Industry: New Street
The departure of Commissioner Geoffrey Starks from the FCC (see 2503180067) probably won’t have a major effect on companies that the FCC regulates, New Street’s Blair Levin said in a research note Tuesday. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr doesn’t “need a majority to do what he wants to do,” Levin said. “Partly this is due to defining the job differently than past chairs, emphasizing the power of the bully pulpit to cause Congress and others to act more than relying on formal FCC decisions,” he said: “Given his agenda, the bureaus can, under his direction, do many of the things he wants without a full Commission vote.”
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“As Michael Copps, Ajit Pai, and Brendan Carr demonstrated while they were minority Commissioners, their importance lay not in how they voted but in how effective they were in generating public and judicial opposition to their Chair’s agenda,” Levin said. “As those three demonstrated, their opposition also helped create an agenda for when their party retook majority control of the FCC.”