FCC commissioner's savvy helps resolve issues

LAS VEGAS -- It's tempting to sum up Susan Ness as the June Cleaver type. But behind her nurturing way is an agile power broker whose political and business savvy makes her good at settling disputes involving the nation's television and telephone systems.

In her five years as a member of the Federal Communications Commission, Ness has emerged as a crucial bridge between the agency's liberal and conservative factions, and an effective dealmaker at an agency that oversees roughly one-seventh of the nation's economy.

"She doesn't come across as an aggressive person, but she knows what she wants and goes after it," said a friend, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "You talk to Susan and you sense that you are getting an honest count."

When Ginsburg was picked by President Carter to serve on the federal court here, it was Ness who had the savvy to take her to a centrist Republican whose support helped overcome what Ginsburg herself called her "flaming feminist" image among some Republicans.

Ness' friendship with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton -- they met at a Renaissance weekend in 1983 -- paved the way for her nomination to the FCC.

The most senior of the agency's five commissioners, Ness is there at a time when the FCC is treading difficult political and policy-making waters. Key Republican lawmakers are upset over the agency's implementation of a 1996 law deregulating the telecommunications industries. They want to strip away some of its power, particularly over mergers.

Keeping pace with rapidly changing technology and with companies that don't fit neatly into one framework is another challenge: Is AT&T a telephone company, a cable television service, an Internet provider or all three? The agency also is overseeing broadcasters' move into digital, an issue Ness will speak about as the industry gathers for its annual meeting in Las Vegas this week.

"She knows a lot about this profession, but she doesn't wear it on her sleeve. She's just very solid," said another friend, Ann Lewis, counselor to President Clinton.

Ness takes as much pride in being a mother as a senior government official. Son, David, 10, is a computer whiz who freely offers technical advice. Elisabeth, 14, sings, dances and acts in school plays. Ness always carries in her leather calendar a note Elisabeth, then 9, wrote on the day of her mother's Senate confirmation hearing. "Good Luck. You needn't be nervous. You are my Mom and shall always be."

Some telecommunications lobbyists call Ness the FCC's in-house Mom, too. But Ness, unassuming and unfailingly polite, uses those traits to her advantage, drawing people to her for advice, to build consensus or to break through impasses.

When broadcasters, TV set makers, computer and cable TV guys were at loggerheads over digital TV technical standards several years ago and refused to deal with then-FCC chairman Reed Hundt, they sought out Ness. She quietly took control, steering and pushing them to reach agreement, giving deadlines, building public support.

"There's no question that she was the linchpin," recalls Peter Fannon, now an executive with Panasonic. The agreement is now a blueprint for building new digital TV sets, just now cropping up in stores.

When Hundt wanted to bail out overeager, but underfunded bidders for mobile phone licenses, Ness forged a compromise giving the companies some relief but requiring them to still come up with money. She also brokered a compromise that gave schools cheap hookups to the Internet and was a prominent figure in negotiations -- ultimately clinched by the White House -- that led to broadcasters having to air three hours of educational children's' programs a week. Both were key White House issues.

Still, despite her connection to Mrs. Clinton, the White House passed her over for chairman in 1996. Ness didn't have a champion in Clinton's inner circle and various industry groups preferred others, say those involved.

Now, Ness' term expires June 30 and it's unclear whether Clinton will reappoint her. Senate Commerce Committee John McCain, R-Ariz., must clear any nomination and McCain generally believes commissioners should serve only one term. Ness could continue to serve for at least another year without being reappointed. Were she to leave and a successor not immediately take her place, the FCC could end up with paralyzing 2-2 deadlocks.

Ness won't discuss her prospects. "All I will tell you is that I love what I do," she said.

A lawyer with an MBA from Wharton, Ness has more business experience than any member now on the FCC. For years she was a banker lending money to TV, radio, cable and telephone companies. A self-described pragmatic policy-maker who shuns the term "regulator," she asks: "You can have all kinds of requirements but who is going to pay for them? Consumers?"

Consumer advocate Gene Kimmelman gives Ness high marks for protecting telephone consumers, but complains she didn't do enough to protect TV watchers from rising cable rates.

Some broadcasters, telephone executives and lawmakers, on the other hand, think she's too regulatory.

"We don't always agree," said Jeffrey Smulyan, chairman of Emmis Communications Corp., a large broadcasting company. "But I never doubted that she has great concern of the impact that we have on people's lives."

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