GOP considers Duke professor for FCC

Senate Republicans continue to search for their preferred nominee to the Federal Communications Commission — and lawmakers may be looking seriously at Michelle Connolly, a top professor at Duke University.

Four industry sources confirmed to POLITICO she’s considered a strong candidate to win Republicans’ blessings for the empty seat once held by Commissioner Robert McDowell, who left the agency on May 17. Connolly currently serves as a professor in the Economics Department at Duke University. She has had two tours of duty as chief economist at the FCC — first in 2006-07 and then in 2008-09 — according to her biography online. And she has written extensively on telecom and media policy, at one point testifying before Congress in 2011 on spectrum reform. Connolly, however, is not the only name in the running. Sources have pointed to other candidates, including A.B. Cruz, who left Scripps Networks last year, and two top Republican telecom staffers on Capitol Hill, Ray Baum and Neil Fried.