President Joe Biden is under pressure from advocacy groups to name a permanent Federal Communications Commission chairman, and a third commissioner who will give that chair the Democratic majority needed to do big, regulatory-minded things.

The FCC is currently locked in a 2-2 political tie. Past chairs have pointed out that the vast majority of the agency’s decisions are unanimous, but that doesn't change the fact that many of the highest-profile rulings, like on media ownership deregulation, broadband subsidy programs and net neutrality regulations, are not.

The FCC has just been officially asked to restore the net neutrality rules, so that proceeding has already been teed up.

As acting chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel has the inside track for permanent chair. According to one lobbyist source, some political consultants are already making hires based on the assumption Rosenworcel will get the nod. But she is not a lock. 

Some folks, including the Congressional Black Caucus, supported commissioner Geoffrey Starks for the chairmanship (or acting chairmanship) between the election and Inauguration Day. But after Rosenworcel, the commission’s senior Democrat, got the acting nod, it would be unusual for Starks to now leapfrog her for the top spot, Washington lobbyists and former FCC officials said, speaking on background.

Starks declined comment on his chairmanship aspirations, but multiple people said he has clearly been seeking the post.

Rosenworcel has fans on Capitol Hill, where she was a top Senate staffer, and in Silicon Valley. So does Edward “Smitty” Smith, a partner at law firm DLA Piper who has experience with overseeing multibillion-dollar broadband subsidies at the National Telecommunications & Information Administration and at the FCC, as an adviser to the Broadcast Incentive Auction Task Force.

Smith also was on the four-person Biden FCC transition review team and raised money for the candidate. One D.C. vet said that if any profile fit a presidential FCC pick, it is Smith’s.

Whether the new chair is Rosenworcel (most likely, says one former top FCC official of the other party) or Smith (in the running, says another) or even Starks (unlikely, but with backers and good people skills), the key will be locking in the third Democratic vote.

Smith could be a candidate for that third seat on the FCC, along with Anna Gomez of D.C. powerhouse law firm Wiley, whose namesake is former FCC chairman Dick Wiley and whose alumni include numerous former FCC commissioners including another former chairman, Republican Kevin Martin.

Gomez is also a former top official at the NTIA, the White House’s chief communications policy advisory arm. 

Another name mentioned for the third seat is Travis LeBlanc, a partner at D.C. law firm Cooley LLP. He is former FCC Enforcement Bureau chief under the last Democratic chairman, Tom Wheeler. More germane to the current discussion, he is former senior adviser to then-California attorney general, and now-Vice President, Kamala Harris. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a Feb. 5 confirmation hearing on Travis LeBlanc for a five-year hitch on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, for which he was nominated by President Donald Trump.

LeBlanc, who recently joined Cooley as a partner in its international cyber/data/privacy, telecommunications and litigation practices, is the former head of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau under then FCC chairman Tom Wheeler.

The Civil Liberties Oversight Board is a five-member board (currently it is down to three members) within the Executive Branch that was created by the 9/11 Commission to make sure that government efforts to combat terrorism are balanced with the protection of privacy and civil liberties. That includes advising the President on those issues.

LeBlanc's resume also includes special assistant attorney General of California and a senior advisor to then-Attorney General (now Senator) Kamala Harris. In that role he oversaw privacy and cybersecurity policy among many other things.

LeBlanc has been making a mark in the privacy sphere. He was tapped last September to help oversee compliance with the E.U.-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. That is the agreement between the European Union and the U.S. over protecting the privacy of cross-border information flows.

Straight Path Communications has agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle an investigation into its failure to deploy wireless service as required by its spectrum license, and it will sell or surrender all of its 5G licenses, according to the FCC.

The company will surrender 196 of its 1,000 39-GHz licenses, sell the rest, and give the FCC 20% of the proceeds from that sale.

Squatting on spectrum licenses without any meaningful effort to put them to good use in a timely manner is fundamentally inconsistent with the public good,” said Travis LeBlanc, chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau," in announcing the settlement.  “Wireless spectrum is a scarce public resource. We expect every person or company that receives a spectrum license to put it to productive use.”

Straight Path will have to pay $15 million up front, but won't have to pay the other $85 million if it either sells the balance of the licenses within 12 months or surrenders them. The 20% of the sale price is an additional penalty.

Straight Path called it a "comprehensive settlement" that has "cleared the way for a review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value," said CEO Davidi Jonas, which means selling the licenses. It has retained Evercore to advise it on the sale.

“We are pleased that we were able to achieve a comprehensive settlement with the FCC, which allows us to move forward as the largest holder of 39-GHz spectrum, with about 95 percent of the total licenses commercially available at this time, as well as a significant holder of 28-GHz in major markets, including New York and San Francisco," Jonas said.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai took his criticism of the FCC's Enforcement Bureau to the legal minds that have to deal with the results of bureau actions.

In a speech to the 33rd annual Practicing Law Institute/Federal Communications Bar Association Institute on Telecommunications Policy & Regulation, Pai said the bureau was trying to grab headlines with big fines rather than following the law.

"We have to recognize that the Enforcement Bureau’s purpose is not to pursue media coverage as vigorously as Roxie Hart from the musical Chicago," Pai said, according to a copy of his prepared text in which he displayed his penchant for colorful analogies. "Nor is it to make policy on a whim. Rather, it is to firmly but fairly enforce rules that are already on the books."

He was echoing criticisms of the bureau he aired at a House FCC oversight hearing last month.

Pai said the bureau's priorities are off, that it is no longer accountable to FCC commissioners and that it is less productive than in the past, something bureau chief Travis LeBlanc definitely disputes.

Pai complained during last month's House hearing that the bureau had not responded to his requests for information on investigations currently in the pipeline, though during that hearing, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler suggested that did not break with precedent.

In his speech, Pai called for more congressional oversight and said the commissioners should get to vote on large consent decree settlements -- those of more than $100,000 for common carriers, and more than $25,000 for others. He pointed out commissioners already get to vote on notices of apparent liability or forfeiture orders above those amounts.

He also called for deadline for final action, either acting on a forfeiture order within a year or nullifying it. He also said the bureau should give consumers a way to track and understand the progress of a case involving a notice of apparent liability.