Mignon Clyburn Among Those Named to Joe Biden FCC Transition Team

By John Eggerton
last updated

Quartet of communications policy vets tapped

Mignon Clyburn
(Image credit: FCC)

President-elect Joe Biden has tapped his FCC transition team and it includes several FCC vets including one of the leading candidates for the chairmanship, former commissioner and acting chair Mignon Clyburn. Clyburn's father, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) helped jump-start Biden's then-flagging campaign with his endorsement.

Clyburn was acting chairman between Democratic chairs Julius Genachowski and Tom Wheeler.

Mignon Clyburn opened her own consulting firm after leaving the commission in 2018.

Leading the Biden FCC transition team is John Williams, senior counsel at House Judiciary.

Related: Clyburn Praises Public/Private Partnerships

Also helping with the FCC transition are Paul de Sa, former chief for strategic planning and policy analysis under Democratic FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who later formed Quadra Partners, a broadband-focused public policy firm, with two other FCC alum when he exited in 2017, and Edward "Smitty" Smith, deputy managing partner at DLA Piper LLP in Washington and former legal advisor to Wheeler.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.