Starks' FCC Exit Likely in June After He Says Thursday's FCC Meeting Is His Last
Democratic FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks’ announcement Thursday that he was attending his last commission meeting (see 2505220013) sparked renewed concerns from his supporters on and off Capitol Hill that President Donald Trump will leave his seat vacant instead of naming a party-affiliated successor. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights led another push just before Starks’ announcement for Senate leaders to delay Republican FCC nominee Olivia Trusty’s confirmation process until the Trump administration commits to keeping the commission staffed with two members not affiliated with the party of the sitting president.
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“This has been the role and honor of a lifetime,” Starks said during the meeting. He followed up in an X post, saying, “Thank you for all of our work together!” Starks didn’t indicate his departure was effective immediately, as some news organizations reported after the announcement. He also didn’t give a specific retirement date.
“No further announcement,” Starks' Chief of Staff Justin Faulb said in an email. “He has just said it is his last open meeting.” FCC officials and other observers told us they expect he will officially leave in June, likely well before the agency's June 26 meeting. Starks said in March that he would leave the agency this spring (see 2503180009).
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., told us Wednesday, before Starks’ announcement, that they were trying to get more information from the commissioner’s office on his resignation timeline. Starks’ exit will formally give Republicans an FCC majority, regardless of when the Senate confirms Trusty.
Lujan told us Wednesday night that Starks “should” reconsider his announced departure but said he hadn’t had a chance to speak to the commissioner about it. The lawmaker noted that Starks asked senators in 2023 to confirm him to “serve for a full term,” which was set to end June 30, 2027 (see 2306220067). He could have stayed on as a commissioner through Jan. 3, 2029, if the Senate didn’t confirm a replacement nominee. After Starks’ announcement Thursday, Lujan told us it’s “disappointing that [Starks] has chosen to leave, [given he has been] a visionary and can get things done” on important communications policy priorities.
Replacement Prospects Uncertain
Communications policy lobbyists told us they don’t expect Cantwell or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to publicly endorse a Democratic contender to succeed Starks, as a way of shaming Trump if he fails to name a replacement. Several officials and lobbyists pointed to Didier Barjon, Schumer’s tech and telecom legislative aide, as a likely contender. Officials and lobbyists also mentioned as possibilities SpaceX's David Goldman; Narda Jones, former chief of staff to then-FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel; former Incompas President Angie Kronenberg; and T-Mobile Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Smitty Smith.
The Leadership Conference and other groups said Trusty “must be paired with a nominee recommended to the administration [by Schumer], following the regular process.” In a letter to Schumer and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., the groups said the upper chamber should delay Trusty's confirmation vote “until you have written assurance from the [Trump] administration that the current FCC will remain fully staffed, with five commissioners (including the current Democratic Commissioner [Anna] Gomez and a replacement for ... Starks) for the duration of the administration.”
The FCC’s “ability to efficiently and effectively fulfill [its] vital functions depends upon maintaining its full slate of five commissioners, with no more than three from the same party, as Congress directed,” the groups told Thune and Schumer. Some of the groups made a similar request in April before Trusty’s Senate Commerce confirmation hearing (see 2504030067). Public Knowledge and seven other entities signed on to the new letter.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr demurred from answering a reporter’s question after the Thursday meeting about what he would say to Trump if the president asked whether to mirror his disputed March firings of Democratic FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter (see 2503190057) by sacking Gomez. Carr wouldn’t answer “speculative questions” but said the FCC “is somewhat differently situated than other agencies in the sense that the Communications Act as set by Congress does not include for-cause removal protections for FCC commissioners.” That “goes for everybody that serves on the agency,” he said. Carr earlier praised Starks’ FCC service, as did Gomez, Goldman, NTCA and USTelecom.
Gomez told reporters she will miss Starks, who was an FCC staffer before the Senate first confirmed him as a commissioner in 2019. “He really has been a long-standing public servant and has done very great work,” she said. The FCC will soon have a Republican majority, which “does change the dynamics.” It will be “a lot easier [for Republicans] to get their policies put forward, but it’s not going to stop me from speaking out,” she said. Gomez emphasized that the relationships among the commissioners have been very “collegial.”