In the beginning, it was Reed Who?
But by last week’s resignation announcement, the only question was, When?
Arguably the most controversial, yet most constructive Federal Communications Commission chairman in history, Reed Hundt’s decision last week to step down was not unexpected. It just came a little sooner than most expected. For others, the resignation announcement was not soon enough.
Indeed, the telecom industry and GOP lawmakers had a love-hate relationship with Hundt. They loved to hate him. Champagne flowed and there was dancing in the street from M in downtown to Constitution Avenue, up the steps to the U.S Capitol.
What bothered the industry most about Hundt was that he couldn’t be lobbied to its liking. He stood up to them, unlike many of his predecessors. He answered to the White House, his master.
And for all the tough talk from GOP lawmakers, nary a one was able to land a glove on him in three-and-a-half years. He left most of his detractors frustrated.
What his naysayers will forever refuse to admit is that, for the most part, Hundt delivered. History may make this judgment. However, the vintage Hundt drove lobbyists, lawmakers and even his own employees crazy in the delivery. Crafty, yet with a credibility gap, Hundt always was on the political make. The man behind the man, loyal chief of staff Blair Levin, did the advance work and helped make it happen.
Hundt said his move was driven by a desire to spend more time with his growing children, but indications are that is not going to happen any time soon. Working at the White House or greasing the political skids for a 2000 presidential run by Vice President Al Gore are hardly 9-to-5 jobs.
More important than his decision, though, was its timing. Despite talk of immediate family concerns, Hundt’s decision had powerful political overtones.
Politics-First Family politics-has been the hallmark of the Hundt regime.
Any chance of retaining a Democratic majority at the FCC required moving ahead now with the process of finding a successor to Hundt. The administration’s strategy is simple and straight forward. Bring to the Senate a package: Democratic nominee FCC General Counsel Bill Kennard and Republican nominee Harold Furchtgott-Roth. Do the same a month from now when Justice Department antitrust lawyer Micheal Powell’s name is sent up to the Hill with a Democratic nominee.
Hundt was the White House’s good soldier, something for which he was roundly criticized. The indefatigable and stubborn FCC chairman made no apologies for his allegiance to the White House. Truth is, every FCC chairman has taken cues from the Oval Office. Only Hundt exploited politics more and better than any of his predecessors. The notion of the FCC as an independent agency is, as official Washington knows well, laughable.
When the Office of Management and Budget looked to Hundt to help balance the budget with wireless license sales, Hundt dropped everything and began holding auctions around the clock. Photo ops and fanfare galore garnished $23 billion in shaky license sales.
The beneficiaries: AT&T Corp., Sprint Corp., the Baby Bells and a sassy startup named NextWave Telecom Inc., which used more foreign cash than allowed by law to pummel U.S. firms that played by the rules in a misnamed “small business” auction.
But having spent nearly $5 billion on licenses, Hundt was willing to forgive and forget the NextWave transgression.
Private wireless spectrum policy, meanwhile, got put on the back burner during Hundt’s reign.
When Gore, with whom Hundt attended prep school in Washington, D.C., years ago, pledged to connect every school, library and hospital to the information superhighway, Hundt did it. However, the next FCC chairman will have to figure how to pay for classroom Internet connections, not to mention basic telephone service for poor people and rural folks.
When President Clinton, with whom Hundt attended Yale Law School, waffled on affirmative action after the Supreme Court and GOP-led Congress frowned upon the policy, Hundt took the hint and immediately dropped female and minority bidding credits. Today, two years after the Supreme Court’s Adarand decision, the FCC hasn’t developed a comprehensive study that, if conducted earlier, might have enabled the agency to integrate diversity measures into telecom policy.
However, Hundt did help a handful of women and minorities pick up regional paging licenses at the auction. Indeed, he surrounded himself with capable female and minority policymakers.
That Hundt chose to announce his resignation at a time of spectrum auction malaise is symbolic, and not in the least insignificant.
Even after he’d estranged himself from the entrenched telecommunications industry establishment by introducing the revolutionary notion of competition, Hundt still had his prized auction program.
Sure, he’d overseen the implementation of the 1996 telecommunications act. But the interconnection decision got tied up in court and the other two rulings of the trilogy-access reform and universal service-are likely to follow.
Indeed, Hundt lost the seven regional Bell telephone companies that have monopolized local markets for a century. The Bells bought their way into telecom reform, but could not sway the headstrong Hundt. Not long after taking office in late 1993, the monopoly cable TV industry wrote off Hundt, too, because of what it viewed as his heavy-handed approach to regulation.
The broadcast industry also had it in for Hundt for wanting to auction digital TV channels. Instead, what some called $70 billion in corporate welfare was given away. Hundt also insisted that TV licensees put a few hours of children’s programming on each week. An outrageous attack on the First Amendment, broadcasters cried.
But the powerful broadcasters, as always, prevailed.
Still, they, like the rest of telecom industry, are forever out of their comfort zone because of Reed Hundt.
