UPDATE President Joe Biden formally sent his FCC nominations to the Senate this week. He nominated former NTIA Acting Administrator Anna Gomez to the vacant fifth FCC seat and re-nominated sitting Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks for new terms.
If confirmed, Gomez would be the first Latina to sit on the FCC since 2001, Inside Towers reported. Gomez is currently with the State Department, serving as a Senior Advisor for International Information and Communications Policy in the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. In addition to her four years at NTIA, she worked for 12 years at the FCC. Gomez held various positions at the agency, including as Deputy Chief of the International Bureau and as Senior Legal Advisor to then-Chairman Bill Kennard.
Prior to joining the State Department in 2023, Gomez was a partner in Wiley LLP’s telecommunications media and technology group. Gomez also was Vice president for Federal and State Government Affairs at Sprint Nextel.
Starks has been an FCC Commissioner since 2017. Prior, he was Assistant Bureau Chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau. Before joining the Commission in 2015, Starks served as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice. Before his government service, Starks practiced law at Williams & Connolly.
Carr first joined the FCC as a staffer in 2012. Prior to his current role as a Commissioner, Carr was the FCC’s General Counsel and before that a staffer in multiple offices at the Commission. Before joining the agency, he clerked for Judge Dennis Shedd on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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