Stop the revolving door at the FCC

[Commentary] A supposed public servant skips out on her job at the Federal Communications Commission to take one as a lobbyist for the company whose multibillion-dollar mega-merger she just voted to approve. Scandal or business as usual? Depends who you ask.

Inside the Beltway, the revolving door between government and industry is dismissed with a shrug because "everybody does it." Out in the real world, people know something stinks. If you want to know why so many people are disillusioned and disgusted with Washington, look no further than FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker’s decision to leave the FCC to become a lobbyist for Comcast after rubber-stamping the media giant's takeover of NBC. Of course, Baker is not the first government official to accept a paycheck from the industry she was once charged with regulating, and, sadly, she will not be the last. However, her announcement has brought the unseemliness of the revolving door into stark relief. Free Press sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and the three other remaining commissioners, asking them to pledge neither to seek nor accept employment from AT&T or T-Mobile directly upon leaving their present posts. We ask for assurance that, in this matter, the FCC’s commitment is to the public it serves and not to potential future employers.

There are philosophical differences among the commissioners on what role government should play in regulating business. There is also no single resolution to this proposed merger that will satisfy everyone. But we hope that through this pledge the public can at least be confident that deliberations are based not on any future job prospects, but on the agency's actual mandate: whether this deal is truly in the public interest. [Aaron is the president and CEO of Free Press]