WASHINGTON-President Clinton’s four picks for the Federal Communications Commission won approval by the Senate Commerce Committee last week, and there were new indications that the nomination of William Kennard for FCC chairman will not be blocked by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) or others.
With this week’s congressional recess, the earliest the nominations of Kennard, Gloria Tristani (Democrat), Michael Powell (Republican) and Harold Furchtgott-Roth (Republican) can go to the Senate floor is the week of Oct. 20. If confirmed, the four would join standing Commissioner Susan Ness (Democrat) on the Democratic-controlled FCC.
Helms told RCR last week he was not satisfied with written replies from Kennard to questions about a controversial FM radio license proceeding that Kennard, as FCC general counsel, weighed in on. Kennard has since recused himself from the matter.
The FCC said Kennard met with Helms last Wednesday. Kennard declined to characterize the meeting, but a high-ranking FCC official said it went well.
Such was not the case when Kennard met recently with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), according to sources. Stevens reportedly was not happy with Kennard’s explanation of FCC implementation of universal service rules mandated by the 1996 telecom act.
As such, Stevens may attach language to the Commerce appropriations bill that would require a detailed study of universal service funding.
Helms, the powerful Republican lawmaker who nixed Clinton’s nomination of former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld for ambassador to Mexico, has made rumblings for weeks about Kennard’s role in revoking an FM radio station permit held by a long-time North Carolina broadcaster.
Helms suggested in written questions to Kennard that the FCC’s action might have been politically motivated. One FCC official went so far as to hint of a racial overtone in Helms’ queries.
In addition to meeting with Kennard, Helms huddled with the other GOP North Carolina senator, Lauch Faircloth, last week on the Kennard nomination.
Helms pressed Kennard, who if confirmed would become the first African American FCC chairman in history, about whether he had relationships, personal, business or political, with Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) and Harvey Gantt, both black Democratic politicians.
Watt is an investor in a group that acquired the radio license taken from the Zebulon Lee family of North Carolina. Watt said he doesn’t know what his ownership stake is in that license.
Watt ran Gantt’s senatorial campaign in 1990 to unseat Helms. Gantt lost to Helms again in 1996 in a contest that Helms turned into a referendum on affirmative action.
Gantt, according to the 1998 Almanac of American Politics, cashed in a $450,000 profit on a $679 investment on a TV station because of a law that at the time (now repealed) gave minority preferences in broadcast license proceedings.
The North Carolina connection at the FCC is Blair Levin, who before coming to Washington, D.C., to serve as chief of staff to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt was a corporate bond lawyer and an activist in North Carolina Democratic politics.
While Watt said he has no recollection of meeting Levin, Levin said he knew all of the principal actors in North Carolina Democratic politics.
Kennard told Helms he was never contacted by Watt or Gantt regarding the FM radio license at issue and discussed the matter with Levin for the first time in June 1997, following an expose in MediaWeek titled “How the FCC Destroyed Zeb Lee.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) warned that neither FCC nominations nor any other presidential appointment would go forward if Democrats persisted in trying to revive struggling campaign finance reform legislation.
