FCC Commissioner O’Rielly Is in It for the Long Haul

Washington (DC) may be white-knuckling its way through the last days of a traumatic 2016 election. But up on the eighth floor of the Federal Communications Commission, Michael O’Rielly is taking it all in stride. The Republican commissioner’s job is safe no matter what happens on Nov 8. Commissioner O’Rielly’s term doesn’t end until June 30, 2019, and a law allowing him to remain until a successor is appointed means he could stick around into 2020.

Perhaps it’s that sense of stability that gives Commissioner O’Rielly — whose frequent pleas for a light regulatory touch have fallen on deaf ears at a commission dominated by Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler — such an unflappable outlook. At nearly every FCC open meeting, Commissioner O’Rielly can be found dutifully dissenting against what he characterizes as the commission’s latest usurpation of congressional authority. “It’s OK. I make my points,” he said. “Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. And we go from there.” “Most times I lose,” he added, with a grin and a shrug. But Commissioner O’Rielly knows he will outlast the current chairman, who has indicated that he will step down in 2017 to allow a new president to appoint a chairman of his or her choice. When it comes to Commissioner O’Rielly’s plans for reining in the FCC, he is playing the long game. “You don’t have to be the chairman to get good outcomes,” he said. “Right now, the commission is viewed as a pyramid. And it doesn’t have to be.”