With Hiring Freeze Issue for Pai, Degani Emerging as Key Staffer

Degani’s hands-on involvement with most issues ruffled some feathers of career staff, agency officials said. Others said Degani has had little choice but to try to handle many issues, especially given the federal hiring freeze that limited Pai’s ability to bring on new staff. Degani also worked in the House for Commerce Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., and ex-Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., as well as being a staffer for the Office of General Counsel and the Wireline Bureau.

With former Pai aide Brendan Carr now acting general counsel and Berry busy with larger management issues, Degani is the lone holdover from Pai’s pre-chairmanship days engaged in the minutiae of policy. The other aides in the chairman’s office are relatively inexperienced, putting pressure on Degani to engage on a wide number of issues, FCC and industry officials said. As the other advisers gain experience, more of Degani’s responsibilities are likely to be shifted to them, an FCC official said.

Gigi Sohn, a top aide to then Chairman Tom Wheeler, said the federal hiring freeze is a “major problem” for Pai. “Wheeler was able to bring in very senior bureau chiefs and very senior staffers,” she said. “They didn’t need much guidance.” Sohn, now a fellow at the Open Society Foundations, said she also heard reports of complaints from within the FCC but is sympathetic to problems Pai faces putting new staff in place.

"Pai hasn't been able to bring in new people because of the hiring freeze and the administration's generally being slow to process political appointments across the entire government," said Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom. "Pai is trying to chart a new course for the agency. That'll take a lot of direct involvement in what the staff does. And right now, Degani seems to be the only one who can play that role. No one knows more about the legal interstices of the FCC, at least on wireline issues.”

“Chairman Pai is moving with unprecedented, and I would say ill-advised, speed to overturn Wheeler-era initiatives,” countered Andrew Schwartzman, senior counsel at the Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation. “This would be difficult even for a fully staffed office.”

Lots of industry officials are quick to defend how Pai and staff conduct business on a day-to-day basis, said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. “I guess these are the same people who spent the last several years fuming about the minutiae of the Wheeler administration,” Wood said. “We won't be awarding gold stars for attention to detail any time soon. We focus on results. ... Pai's attacks on Lifeline, privacy and the open internet have not gone unnoticed."

Chairs' Control

It’s normal for chairmen to exercise more control on items central to their agenda, said Harris Wiltshire attorney John Nakahata, a former FCC chief of staff, who said he wasn't aware of staff process objections under Pai. He said that Pai doesn’t necessarily have his full team in place for the long term could contribute to some centralization of decision-making now. “I do think publishing the drafts [ahead of commissioner meetings] has changed the process, probably for the better,” Nakahata said.

The number of acting bureau chiefs contributes to centralized decision-making, agreed an industry official. But regardless of who’s in those slots, it seems less will be done on the bureau level than on the commission level under Pai, who's “not a big fan of delegated authority,” the official said. But Pai appears to have “genuine respect for commission personnel, their expertise, how hard working they are, and that always trickles down,” said the official. “I was concerned he would be an autocrat … But he hasn’t been personal; he hasn’t been biting and casting aspersions.”

It’s too early to draw conclusions about Pai’s relationship with FCC staff -- or other commissioners, said Blair Levin, Brookings Institution nonresident senior fellow and another former chief of staff. “As far as I can remember, every commissioner thinks the FCC chair should be more like a chairman of the board, and share all information and responsibilities, while every chairman want to be more like a CEO.”

“If you’re the chairman, it’s really valuable if you can make common cause with at least one minority member,” Nakahata said. “If you only rely on majority votes, somebody can hold out.”

“That both Pai and Berry have a relatively long relationship with the agency is generally a good thing," emailed Francisco Montero, managing partner at Fletcher Heald, which has broadcaster and other clients. "They can appreciate what the staff can and cannot do. I also find that such people have a true appreciation of how hard the staff really works. But also, because they are familiar with the commission, they know when they are being sold a bill of goods and I think they are probably generally less tolerant of the spin bureaus might present to the 8th floor on whether something is or isn’t feasible. That can also create strain because the staff can have its feet held to the fire.”

Degani's Background

Many credited Degani's background as aide to legislators and a regulator as helping him navigate this job.

Degani has shifted between the Hill and fairly high positions on the eighth floor and in the bureaus, Montero noted. “So he’s another good example of someone who has seen how the machine works from the inside,” he emailed. “That, coupled with the relative inexperience of the others, may be placing a lot of pressure on Degani to be everywhere at once. But it is early and newcomers to a big job like this frequently want to be everywhere and not let ‘the Boss’ down. Let’s face it, if you’re an FCC Chair, Chief of Staff or Senior Legal Adviser chances are you might be an overachiever. They’re not comfortable just watching the world go by. So we should give them some slack and let them settle into their new roles. Check back in six months.”

All of Pai’s top aides are playing a big role transforming the FCC, said Randolph May, president of the Free State Foundation. “I would expect Degani to be involved with the staff with regard to developing key policies, and, frankly, I’d be disappointed if a senior person on Pai’s staff were not involved,” May said. “There needs to be a change in orientation at the commission to one that is much less presumptively pro-regulatory, and that’s not going to happen to the extent it should without the active involvement of Pai’s office. I’m pretty confident that Chairman Pai and his own senior staff know how to accomplish this reorientation while remaining respectful of the agency’s personnel and the work they do.”

“There is always some disquiet among career staff when a leadership change occurs,” said Fred Campbell, director of Tech Knowledge. “If a chairman spends little time on the day-to-day operations of the agency, the bureaus will fill the leadership void, which risks infighting among the staff over policies and turf. The agency tends to be more productive if a chairman’s management style is more hands-on, though this approach risks piquing staff who feel their importance has been curtailed.”

“Each chair has a different style about how much power is consolidated in the front office compared to the bureaus,” said an industry representative. “My sense is they’re empowering the bureaus. They are definitely leaning heavily on their experts.” Commissioner Pai’s office was always “very thorough” and knowledgeable and that has transferred to Pai as chairman, said a former FCC spectrum official.