WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission will be a less exciting place after Andrew C. Barrett leaves early next year. No more of those probing-sometimes direct, sometimes drifting-colloquies with FCC staff or light-hearted, off-the-cuff remarks to other commissioners during open meetings.
Without Barrett’s banter, FCC open meetings will become entirely scripted.
The balance of power will shift to an uneasy three-to-one Democratic majority that could easily turn into gridlock with Commissioner James Quello, a conservative Democrat, joining Republican Rachelle Chong on one side and FCC Chairman Reed Hundt and Commissioner Susan Ness, both Clinton Democrats, on the other.
States will lose a friend in Barrett, a former member of the Illinois Commerce Commission. When the FCC in January said Ameritech Corp.’s area code relief plan for the Chicago discriminated against paging and cellular carriers, Barrett warned against outright pre-emption of such plans, not only in Illinois but in other states as well.
In addition to contributing a state regulatory perspective to FCC policymaking, Barrett’s analysis of implications of regulatory decisions on business helped temper ideological swings at the agency.
As such, Barrett’s deregulatory philosophy probably fit better in the regime of former FCC chief Alfred Sikes several years ago than in those of Hundt or Quello more recently.
Coming from the gruff political culture of Chicago, Barrett has not been shy about battling folks and bruising egos behind the scenes to win concessions on the road to consensus. It is also said that Barrett has not been timid about jumping on planes to make speeches.
Barrett, a Bush-appointed Republican whose five-year term ended June 30, was not asked back by the Clinton administration. That’s not surprising; presidential politics are heavily in play and Barrett’s relationship with Hundt, a Democratic Clinton pick with close ties to the White House, has been cool yet amicable in the two years since Hundt took office.
“We have a good relationship,” said Barrett. “We’re not the kind of guys that are going to go out to have a beer. We’re not going visit each other on the weekends. We have a good relationship. It’s a civil relationship.” You get the idea.
Barrett said he will remain in office for the rest of the year before joining a “global tele-media group” in Washington, D.C., in early 1996, marking his exit out of public service that began in 1975 and his entry into the private sector.
“I am not in the dark about why I have not been reappointed,” said Barrett, in an interview with RCR in which he talked about achievements and disappointments at the FCC during perhaps the most dynamic era of wireless telecommunications policymaking in history. He talked, too, in open fashion, about himself.
On the plus side, Barrett said there will be strong wireless telephony competition as a result of the FCC’s aggressive push to roll out personal communications services. He said he hopes both cellular duopoly and landline telephone monopoly markets feel the pinch from PCS.
Still, Barrett said he would have liked to have seen more telecommunications deregulation and believes Hundt’s agenda is narrowly focused on auctions, children’s TV and TV violence.
Barrett said the more than $8 billion auction proceeds the FCC’s so proud of “simply went into a dark hole and came out of a dark hole,” explaining that because the money was not spent directly on wiring schools or some other telecommunications project, it got lost in the budget deficit.
That he’s African American and Republican-a rare combination in contemporary politics-are just facts of life and do not carry any special significance or imply any particular political agenda, he says. Maybe on an intellectual level. But on a human level, race has more meaning to him.
Barrett-unpredictable and improbable at times-has tended to remain true to himself and has refused to be cornered by party politics or social peer pressure.
Outwardly gregarious and engaging, Barrett at his core is private. He seems to rely on and trust his instincts, and knows well how to size up the people and politics that surround him. Barrett has learned how to quickly judge who are his friends and who are his enemies, and knows well how those roles can get reversed. His maverick style and fierce independent streak have made him a reluctant team player at times in recent years.
Barrett is at once candid and uncanny; his profound and lasting impact on the wireless revolution has been the result of a combination of passive resistance and outright protest.
As for the latter, Barrett was a vocal opponent of the initial PCS licensing plan adopted under then-acting FCC Chairman Quello in fall 1993, which entailed two 30-megahertz blocks per major trading area, one 20-megahertz block per basic trading area and four 10-megahertz blocks per BTA.
Barrett, casting the lone dissent, said the financial community might not support PCS because too many of the licenses were too small to compete with the two entrenched cellular operators in each market.
In a 16-page statement, Barrett said rather than helping women, minorities, small business and rural telephone companies-four groups the then-Democratic Congress singled out for preferential treatment in spectrum auctions-the PCS band plan set up those entities for failure.
Others agreed, and so did the FCC subsequently; history proved him right. About a year later, under FCC Chairman Hundt, the agency revised the PCS band plan in a way (three 30-megahertz and three 10-megahertz licenses) that addressed precisely Barrett’s concerns about the economic viability of the original PCS licensing scheme that tried to make everyone happy but instead got thumbs down from Wall Street and those in industry who wanted more competition in wireless telephony. The modified PCS band plan got loud cheers from nearly everyone.
“I think it worked out pretty well, I really do,” said Barrett.
Barrett has some misgivings about his agency’s response to the Supreme Court ruling in Adarand Constructors v. Pena to curb federal affirmative action programs, too. When he voted with the other four commissioners to make bidding rules race neutral for the PCS entrepreneur block auction after the high court’s ruling in June, Barrett said he did so as an interim measure to get the auction back on track.
Barrett is upset with what has followed, and spoke out at last month’s meeting to inquire whether the FCC intended to conduct a study on telecommunications diversity to determine whether a case could be made for reinstating bidding credits for women and minorities.
Barrett said the attack on affirmative action goes beyond Adarand, however. “I think a lot of people took my party-the Republican Party’s victory [in last November’s midterm election] to be a mandate,” said Barrett. “Without Adarand having been concluded at that time, I think that people did some knee- jerk reaction and felt the need to appear to fall in line and to have gotten `the message.’ And that was unfortunate. But I think we took steps that were unnecessary and, I think, just as a matter of fundamental fairness, we should have tried to make the case for affirmative kinds of positions that we could have taken to justify [bidding credits]. To try. We didn’t even try.”
Barrett, again acting as a catalyst, prompted the FCC to try. The agency responded with its first public statement about going forward with a study that may lack funding. That delay has caused the African American community to question the agency’s commitment to the study.
“I think I have an obligation to constantly keep the issue of fundamental fairness before this commission and I’m not-because I’m a Republican-going to tuck my tail between my legs and run.”
Barrett stressed his charter has been the broad public interest, despite his views on bidding rule changes. “I think that when I came here people thought I
was going to be a black commissioner who was going to stick to black issues,” Barrett said. “While I found that insulting and while I understand that, we never allowed that to happen to us. And that I’m proud of because I had such a great staff.” Barrett has been very demanding of his staff.
Barrett, one of only a handful of African Americans to serve on the FCC, maintains that being a black Republican doesn’t mean being blind to history either, as many in the black community accuse Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of.
“When you wake up in the morning, and you look in the mirror, and see a black face, and if you’re realistic about why you got where you are…” said Barrett, not completing the sentence. “I am a product of support from mainly very powerful white men in Illinois.”
“I keep close contacts with people,” he added, “but I also have friends that understand my position as it relates to fundamental fairness in America. Whatever Clarence Thomas’ point of reference is, that is not mine. Maybe Clarence Thomas thinks he’s the best qualified person to sit on the Supreme Court, which I think we all doubt and ought to know better. I’ve never had that illusion about my coming here at the FCC. I got to the FCC because I had some very powerful people behind me and none of them happen to be black. They all happened to be white. I could have very easily taken the route Clarence Thomas took and lost sight of the realities of who I am. I can’t do that; that’s dangerous to do if you’re black.”
