Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Regulators

...Trying to borrow an army is also a good reality check...

...After all, one needs to serve both family values and market values, and local governments have an important role in protecting local interests in communications...

...It is not good at fighting skirmishes about details that will forever remain hidden from public view...

...This makes it tougher to reach that final scene in which everyone can hold his or her head up high...

...You can’t make a difference by waiting for a policy matter to come before you and simply reacting...

...But even when you are personally attacked, it never makes sense to return the fire in kind...

...It can be effective at defining and hitting clear targets...

...Whatever the motive, criticism is more prevalent than compliments...

...Journal...

...Reaching out to the opposition also provides you with ammunition for the upcoming battle...

...For most Americans, the term “politics” connotes achieving a goal through connections, not merit, and slick rhetoric, not analytic rigor...

...Personal attacks retard the process necessary to play together when the time is right 10...

...Policy battles are not for the faint of heart...

...8. ‘When confronted with a person pointing a gun at you, negotiate with the person, not the gun...

...But how much fun would life be without some time spent playing guitars and driving old trucks...

...They did, and the result was an allocation of the best spectrum ever made available to the public safety community, spectrum police say will save an untold number of lives...

...Indeed, making sure that all journalists sympathetic to our ideas got the information needed to report on these issues was vital to our efforts, helping articulate our message to the public...

...not lapd wars in Asia...

...Government has limited abilities and resources...

...For instance, Republicans proclaim pro-family values...

...7. YCIUc annot beat more powerful forces without lots of sunshine...

...Unfortunately, when private interests are contrary to good policy, the interests are still likely to win...

...Equipment manufacturers and computer companies, for example, generally like competition in communications because competition means cheaper service costs and more equipment and software sales...

...Upon arriving at the commission, we were told that only 75 people counted-and they all hated our agenda...

...So it was with my time at the commission...

...The personal politics of regulation are awful...

...And even then, it might not have gotten the public any more than we ultimately achieved with broader settlements...

...Which brings us to the invaluable Rule Number Two...

...Rather, the goal is to define an issue in a way that advances the debate beyond the bumpersticker slogans, forces the other side to examine its own contradictions, and gives you a chance to gain support from groups that are not your natural allies...

...But embracing the best ideas of our harshest critics gave us credibility as a team interested in good policy, not easy politics...

...As such, generating support requires making sure that the right voices are heard...

...We had to rely, not on friendly committee majorities in Congress, but on our ability to create, define, and advance our own agenda...

...It completely changes the debate because the media will stop discussing the policy issues and instead focus on the cheap, but fun, personal battle...

...We also sought to make the leading editorial writers part of the 75...

...If you can’t get anyone else to care, you shouldn’t either...

...The last stages of the debate require legions of operatives, press people, researchers, and other troops...

...Two days later, the broadcasters approached the FCC with a far more aggressive schedule...

...During most of my time at the commission, the Republicans controlled not just the Congress but the majority of the FCC...

...Every significant policy debate involves politically powerful private interests...

...Even though these ideas eventually get boiled down into simple slogans, you must first think through, and be prepared to address, all the implications and ambiguities of a policy recommendation before you put it out there for public scrutiny...

...Four months of commission staff‘s privately pointing out the broadcasters’ inconsistencies produced little more than an industry statement that engineering and technical problems required at least a six-year build out...

...Listening to and communicating with your opponent helps you identify the contradictions within his or her position, and then focus the debate on the issues that highlight those contradictions...

...So we needed someone to stake a competing claim for the extraneous spectrum...

...Broadcasters, who didn’t like us on public interest issues, are the essential army on breaking video bottlenecks...

...But issues like educational television and the v-chip put conservatives’ familyvalues agenda in direct conflict with their anti-regulatory position...

...What’s more, by raising the issue that there might be other uses for the spectrum, we got people thinlung about how much spectrum the broadcasters really needed...

...When Congress told the FCC to distribute a huge swatch of spectrum as part of the digital television proceeding, we figured that broadcasters, since they wouldn’t have to pay for it, would naturally grab for more than they needed...

...To enter the gates of heaven, you must be willing to enter the gates of hell...

...Sometimes it turned out that we simply had bad ideas...

...So we kept raising idea after idea that we felt was important...

...networking classrooms, free TV time for candidates, spectrum flexibility, downsizing parts of the commission, and so on...

...It’s amazing how a little sunshine can improve one’s engineering...

...First, the basic physics of policy making...

...But when we went public with our positions, we had already vetted and strengthened the intellectual underpinnings of our arguments...

...But above all, understand the nature of the fight...

...But if you can’t figure out a way to win in the public arena, you can’t win...

...If one worries about popularity, the easy path is to stick with your friends...

...That’s why, for example, we often negotiated directly with broadcasters...

...These voices didn’t cancel out those that opposed our ideas, but we did our best to give them extra volume in order to broaden the debate...

...When it finally comes to resolving an issue, it’s important to understand who has the power to make a deal...

...But it’s not a love fest . So how to do it...

...Io be sure, battles in the press are unpredictable, often reducing complicated algebra to first-grade math...

...But it would have taken about 10,000 lawyers-a wee bit more than our 2,000 person agency could afford...

...A final word of warning: Even if you follow these rules, there’s no guarantee you’ll emerge victorious...

...From the first auctions of spectrum to the deregulation of both the global and domestic telephone markets to the Republican Congress’ attempts to dismantle the commission altogether, the FCC found itself constantly under attack and on the attack...

...It also reminds the press of the variety of issues on the table and limits the ability of parties to take contradictory positions down the road...

...Hire people smarter than you and give them incentives to play like a team, know more than anyone else about the forest and the trees, figure out the leverage points, have a plan but stay flexible, and whenever possible use humor...

...And, whatever its shortcomings, the press remains the best vehicle for exposing the flaws or policy inconsistencies of both the private and the public sectors...

...This requires unpeeling the onion until you find someone who can say yes...

...So we began working to make sure that more non-traditional voices (those friendlier to our agenda, of course) had influence...

...This is one reason why, over time, officials become more supportive of friendly industries than of ideas...

...Film-industry powerhouse George Lucas once told us, “The only power I have is the power of the creator...

...What follows are 10 rules for aspiring government officials who--as unrealistic as it may seem-hope to guide their policy battles toward a Disney-style happilyeverafter ending...

...So although we strengthened an existing definition of “educational,” we decided simply to make information as to which programs the networks deemed “educational” accessible to the public, and allow parents to monitor the quality themselves...

...None of these positions made us particularly popular with our more traditional liberal allies...

...As a general rule, powerful forces beat powerful ideas-unless an intervening actor takes up the cause...

...If you do not make it clear that you’re willing to fight to the finish, no matter what the personal cost, you will undercut your chances of success...

...The role of lone-voice-in-the-wilderness is important, but let someone else play it...

...Likewise, the GOP advocates devolution...

...We invited conservative taxpayers’ groups to monitor debates about auctions and education groups to follow efforts to bring telecommunications services to classrooms...

...For us, politics meant creating enough support to adopt and sustain good public policy objectives...

...5. Only 75 people count...

...Where those interests are consistent with good public policy-and they often are-the good policies easily prevail...

...3. May the power of the creator be with you...

...But by actively creating, we always kept the debate on our terms...

...But we held firm, and subsequently no one ever doubted our resolve...

...For example, in the battle over kids’ television, there were two major issues: how to define what is educational and how much educational programming broadcasters should be obligated to provide...

...Working in the government can be frustrating...

...This dynamic leads some regulators to seek the refuge of the politics of friendship...

...We particularly courted corporate CEOs whose private interests were congruent with the public interest...

...Whether these sentiments are sincere or are merely tactics to prey on insecure commissioners, I know not...

...2. Listen to your adversaries...

...4. Fight air wars in Arabia...

...Nor does it matter...

...We didn’t always succeed...

...when you vote against them, they say it’s because you bear a personal grudge or you’re involved in some political deal...

...We read conservative criticism of communications policy and welcomed opportunities to speak at conservative think tanks...

...Even more important, where conservatives’ criticism made sense, we willingly adopted their best ideas...

...The rules of any business apply...

...Nor is the point to bash the opposition...

...Cable, which hated us on rate regulation, was a big supporter on phone competition issues...

...The point of highlighting such contradictions is not to take one side or the other...

...1. You can’t be good at politics if you are only about politics...

...We could have litigated every cable rate complaint we received to the penny...

...When I started at the FCC, I BLAIR LEVIN served as chief of staff to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1993-1997...

...In this regard, we were lucky...

...So when preparing for a battle, make sure you can borrow someone else’s troops...

...Of course, those on the right still disagreed with much of what we did...

...And on practically every issue, they sought to frame the debate as regulation vs...

...But then front-page stories about the broadcasters’ foot-dragging appeared in The New York Times and Will St...

...But if you expect a policy battle to be waged on the merit of your ideas-not the speed of your spin--you had better thoroughly test your positions before advancing into the field...

...Once we reached an agreement with them on educational television and the details of digital television, the debates at the commission disappeared...

...You have to create a climate in which the right policy has a chance to succeed...

...And local phone companies, who fought tooth and nail to stop us from opening up their markets, played a crucial role in the battles to open foreign markets...

...This led to technical analyses on the matter, and a decision to keep a significant chunk of spectrum out of the broadcasters’ grant and auction it off for billions of dollars-none of which would have been possible without the armies of the cops...

...Make sure it’s the right 75...

...The authors of the First Amendment were right: Decisions made in full view, after public debate, are going to be considerably better than those made behind closed doors...

...At the FCC the power theoretically resides with the commissioners...

...But in communications, devolution inherently leads to more regulation, since regulation in 11,000 different local jurisdictions is always a greater regulatory burden than even the toughest single federal regulation...

...I recognize that, for the sake of stability, there is wisdom in taking those words literally...

...We focused our energies on the more easily measurable issue of quantity...

...This made it easier to stop the anti-competitive merger negotiations between AT&T and Southwestern Bell and to negotiate market-opening conditions in approving the Bell AtlantidNYNEX merger...

...For public officials, this means that, if they want to make a difference, they have to arm themselves for battle...

...Whether one agrees with their views or not, they are the best institution in America for articulating a rationale for a policy...

...When you vote with someone, they think it’s because they are righteous...

...For example, broadcasters pressed the FCC for a rapid grant of digital television licenses, then became reluctant to commit to “build out,” or make use of their new spectrum...

...Government agencies don’t have such armies...

...After the agency cut cable rates, the chairman’s office received a firestorm of criticism...

...We discovered that one of the best ways to finetune our ideas was to test them on the folks most eager to uncover the flaws in our logic-our critics on the right...

...This led us to embrace auctions (using the market rather than the government to allocate spectrum) and spectrum flexibility (giving licensees more freedom in deciding how to use their spectrum), and to reject government standard-setting (particularly since such standard-setting resulted in limiting competition...

...And now, although my head hopes that my children never have to go through some of the attacks and disappointments we faced, my heart hopes they will someday know the joy of fighting the good fight...

...The first issue would have involved the commission in hundreds of individual decisions...

...I was wrong...

...But it is an honorable calling that brings to mind the lyrics of country singer Willie Nelson: “Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys/Don’t let ’em play guitars and drive them old truckslmake ’em be doctors and lawyers and such...

...thought government officials had the luxury of simply deciding on the right policies and coherently explaining their decisions, much like judges...

...Along the way, the chairman’s team learned a few lessons...

...9. Don’t take it personally and don’t get personal...

...The fight does not have to be mean or unfair...

...To counter that simplistic notion, we had to lay open the tensions in the GOP rhetoric...

...This rule also means foregoing battles where the process pain is too great...

...When the 1994 election gave the Republicans control of Congress, these words became our inspiration...

...Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Regulators But if they do-10 survival tips BY BLAIR LEVIN DURING MY FOUR YEARS AS CHIEF OF staff to Reed Hundt, the recently departed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC was involved in a flurry of high-profile policy battles...

...And this last scene is important, because if you win at too great a cost to your opponent, it will end up costing you later on...

...In the early stages of the debate, only a limited number of people have influence...

...deregulation...

...6. Never go into battle without borrohg someone else’s army...

...Typically, these battles have three phases: defining the issue, gathering support, and then orchestrating a resolution...

...But where a commissioner does precisely what a particular industry advocates, it makes no sense to negotiate with the commissioner...

...Someone jokingly suggested that confronting the broadcast industry would require guys with guns, so we promptly invited the police to consider whether they had spectrum needs...

...Remember also that today’s enemy is tomorrow’s ally...

...Every ideology carries inherent contradictions...

...Sometimes we couldn’t generate enough support...