Who Is Deborah Tate?

She has a long list of appointments and service in both state government and Washington, but the fact is she's not a known quantity.

 

In a statement reported by the Los Angeles Times, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Tate "has a distinguished career in state government." And "although Tate has long been rumored to be among the top candidates for the FCC job," the Times writes, "public interest groups and industry analysts reached late Wednesday said they did not know much about her."

 

Even Gene Kimmelman, co-director of the Washington office of Consumers Union, which follows media issues at the FCC, told the Times "I'm from Tennessee but I don't know her."

 

She was appointed to the TRA position in February 2002 by the governor and confirmed by the Tennessee General Assembly. She has also served as a member of Governor Sundquist's senior staff and was his designee to the Juvenile Justice Commission and the TennCare Partners Advisory Committee from 1996 to 2000.

 
According to the Washington Post, "telecom analysts and lawyers said they expected Tate to broadly support (FCC Chairman Kevin) Martin's positions and the general deregulatory trend favored by the Republicans. As a former state regulator, they suggested she might be quicker to defend the prerogatives of states in battles over jurisdiction with Washington."

 
The FCC at full strength has five members. There are currently two Democrats and two Republicans, adding Tate would make it 3-2 for the Republicans. Democrat Michael J. Copps, who favors stricter decency standards on the airwaves, is renominated for another term.

 
In an FCC filing last year, the Post says, "Tate wrote that she wanted 'the states and the FCC to reevaluate our overall regulatory program so that consumer welfare is the centerpiece of regulation rather than restraining the market power of increasingly hypothetical monopolists.'"

 
This would sound like Tate would be sympathetic to big phone companies like Verizon and SBC, and their pleas that they face "growing competition from cable, Internet phone and wireless providers despite their history as regulated monopolies."

 
And she's no stranger to Washington, as in her capacity as TRA director she also sits on the  Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services as a representative from a state commissions. The conference works for "greater federal-state cooperation, which is critical to facilitating the widespread deployment of, and access to, advanced services."

 
Comprised of commissioners from state public utilities commissions and from the Federal Communications Commission, it was convened in 1999 and is chaired by the FCC Chairman or his designee. According to the FSJC's web site its mission is to "share ideas, gather real-life stories from across the country, and assist the FCC in its reports to Congress on the deployment of advanced telecommunications services."

 
In October 2002 the Florida Public Service Commission prepared a report titled "Broadband Service In The United States: An Analysis of Availability and Demand" on behalf of the FSJC. Tate's name and views do not appear in the Florida report.

 
Tate was appointed to the directorship of TRA in 2002, and her term expires in June 2008. She has also served as Director of the State and Local Policy Center at Vanderbilt University, as an Assistant to the Governor and a member of Senior Staff. She holds J.D. degrees from the University of Tennessee.

 
In September 2002 Tate, described as "director of the Tennessee Regulatory Authority and former mental health policy advisor for Governor Don Sundquist," joined the board of directors of Centerstone, a Middle Tennessee provider of mental health services.

 
As a licensed attorney in the State of Tennessee, Tate is a mediator approved by the Tennessee Supreme Court. Her areas of private practice have included juvenile and family law as well as probate and estate law, and her name is listed in a directory of Nashville divorce lawyers.

 
It's this experience mediating between squabbling family members which might be one of her best qualifications for working in D.C.

 

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles by David Sims, please visit: