D.C. Memo: Is the FCC an Independent Agency? Al Gore Certainly Didn't Think So
It was Gore who told FCC Chairman Reed Hundt that his failing cable TV regulations needed a makeover.
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Dog Food: The question of the hour: Is the FCC an independent agency? As a legal matter, maybe it is or maybe it’s just an executive agency like the Council on Environmental Quality or the Council of Economic Advisers. The Supreme Court will let us know when it rules in Trump v. Slaughter next June or July. Legal niceties aside, the idea that the FCC has not been run out of the White House for decades is a conceit embraced by the left today because it provides an excuse to hammer President Trump for believing that Article II’s Vesting Clause established a unitary executive. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty, Republicans who do not believe the FCC is an independent agency, are just standing in the way of the real target sitting in the Oval Office. (More after paywall.)
Who told Democratic FCC Chairman Reed Hundt his cable TV rate regulations had to go? Vice President Al Gore, that's who – in a clear case from 1994 showing that direct White House involvement in FCC policy goes back many decades.