The FCC's Compromiser in Chief

By Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 10, 2008

George W. Bush is smiling upon Kevin J. Martin. So are George H.W., Jeb and Barbara, with big toothy grins in a blown-up picture hanging behind his desk at the Federal Communications Commission.

Martin was appointed by President Bush to head the FCC in 2005, five years after he worked as a legal counsel for Bush's presidential campaign. He also worked on the Florida vote recount, and the fruits of his labor -- newspaper front pages declaring Bush's victory -- line the hallway leading into his office.

So when the rising Republican star was charged with one of the most influential roles in government -- presiding over multibillion-dollar mergers, setting rules on cellphone and Internet services and preventing naked backsides from getting on family television -- the party loyalist was expected to follow the playbook.

Yet from the start, he defied predictions and many in his party. Unlike his predecessor, Michael Powell, a Republican who had pushed for stronger indecency rules and free markets, Martin has not shown a strong ideological bent.

Martin, a soft-spoken 41-year-old, has pushed to change cable television pricing, which angered business leaders and party members. He sided with Democratic lawmakers to pry open wireless airwaves to more companies. He's revived debate on Internet rules that service providers and key Republican lawmakers called a solution looking for a problem.

"He's been incredibly open to our ideas, which has been a huge surprise coming from a key appointee from the Bush White House," said Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America.

In the remaining months of his tenure -- it is expected that the next president will appoint a new chairman -- support for Martin has waned. He is now at the center of a congressional oversight investigation into his leadership, which some officials inside the FCC describe as secretive and autocratic.

For the first time recently, all four other commissioners -- including two Republicans -- voted against Martin, on a decision that Verizon Communications could not use private data on former phone customers to woo them back.

Martin said critics are responding to his push to address many controversial issues during his tenure. He said he is more concerned with addressing public safety and consumer needs than with doctrinaire chest-thumping.

Martin cited a deal he brokered between the satellite radio operators XM and Sirius as proof of his service to consumers. He got the two companies to agree to a list of conditions that would keep prices from rising and create opportunities for minorities in exchange for his blessing on their creation of a monopoly.

Other successes Martin noted: He forced Internet phone services to carry 911 service and has crusaded for cable companies to let consumers buy only channels they want.

"There are no easy questions or easy answers here. They almost all involve big industries, big players and consumer groups, and what I do best is to listen and then come up with consensus or at least compromise," Martin said.

Yet for all the ripples he's caused with his aggressive push for changes in the cable industry, critics say he has overlooked the nation's biggest priorities.

Under his watch, the United States' worldwide ranking for broadband Internet access fell to 16th, behind Denmark and Luxembourg. He failed to establish a wireless network for emergency first responders in disasters like Hurricane Katrina. The transition from low-powered television to digital -- the biggest event in television since the advent of color -- has been wrought with confusion for consumers.

"With Kevin, we've been asleep on broadband, and we're going to be like Rip Van Winkle waking up with no cure for America," said Reed Hundt, a former FCC chairman.

The FCC was once an obscure agency, formed 74 years ago to hand out broadcast television and radio licenses. Today media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Internet billionaire Larry Page come to Martin with hat in hand, humbly asking for favorable policies. The agency is also at a crossroads, struggling to keep up with dramatic changes in technology and communications.

Cable television competes with video Web sites like YouTube. Phone companies like Verizon and AT&T offer television services and high-speed Internet over cellphones.

Martin said he enjoys this expanded telecom world.

"To take a complex issue and find solutions that you can resolve and address policies to -- I like the policy challenges of that," Martin said.

He's done so mostly behind the scenes.

On a recent morning, Martin is clearly uncomfortable as he films a public service announcement about the transition from analog to digital television. He stares, frozen, into the lens and fights to look relaxed, natural.

But once he's among lawmakers, business leaders and consumer advocates, critics say, Martin can be dogged, sometimes difficult and insular.

A congressional staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said House aides used to interact more with staff specialists at the FCC. Under Martin, those meetings are almost always done by him.

"He's maniacal in his desire to control flow of information between the agency and the Hill," the staffer said.

Martin's political aspirations began at the University of North Carolina, where he became student body president his senior year, groomed by alumni politicians in the state.

"I didn't even know he was a Republican until he worked for Bush's election campaign," said friend and former dormmate Steven Tepper, a professor at Vanderbilt University and a Democrat.

Ben Scott, policy director at the public advocacy group Free Press, said he was fiercely at odds with Martin's push to let local television station and newspapers be owned together.

Since last year, however, they've developed a more kindred connection. Martin adopted a rule that would make a national swath of radio-wave spectrum open to any maker of wireless technology, whether or not it's controlled by the wireless carrier. Democrats hailed the condition as a push forward for innovation and choices for consumers. Republicans criticized it as unnecessary regulation.

More recently, Martin also has revived a debate on rules to prevent Internet service providers from blocking or slowing the flow of content over their networks. The issue, called network neutrality, gained attention after Verizon Wireless was caught blocking text messages from NARAL, an abortion-rights advocacy group, and the cable operator Comcast was caught delaying traffic of some video files between Internet users.

Critics say his focus on such issues is a response to the Democratic leadership in Congress. He held a hearing on network neutrality in Cambridge, Mass., the home town of Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on the Internet and telecommunications. About the same time, Markey announced a bill to enforce tougher open-Internet policies.

"He's guided more than anything by where the political winds are blowing and not by any particular philosophical view of anything," said Ken Ferree, president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a conservative policy shop.

Martin disagreed, saying he believes in free-market economics -- though he "can be convinced of regulation" when it comes to issues affecting consumers and public safety.

This, Markey said, is the approach a chairman should take: "Not ideological but rather practical."

Yet that approach makes some wonder whether his style has abetted progress.

James Quello, a former FCC commissioner, said part of the way to succeed is to be a leader. Martin said he meets regularly with the other four commissioners, but some have complained privately that they are kept in the dark and rarely asked to participate in his meetings with key business leaders and lawmakers.

Such tactics have been questioned in the investigation, according to FCC sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the probe is ongoing.

Martin is aware that he has received more scrutiny because he's willing to defy expectations.

"What we do is too controversial," he said. "If you are worried about being liked, you won't get things done."