WASHINGTON — The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a June 27 vote on the nomination of Geoffrey Starks to succeed Democrat Mignon Clyburn on the FCC.
That is according to the agenda for that committee markup session, where bills will be considered, including the Measuring the Economic Impact of Broadband Act of 2017, and a handful of nominations will be voted, including Starks.
The committee held a nomination hearing for Starks Wednesday (June 20), where Committee chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) signaled he wanted to move Starks’ nomination quickly.
His nomination is expected to be favorably reported out of committee with no trouble, and a Senate confirmation vote will likely happen soon after.Starks has been assistant bureau chief in the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, which is not a typical launching pad for a commission seat, like, say, a Hill communications counsel would be, though the most recent Republican addition, Brendan Carr, came directly from the FCC as well.
Starks has an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a law degree from Yale. He also founded a community bank.Like FCC chairman Ajit Pai, he grew up in Kansas, though the city rather than a small town.
His wife is Lauren Thompson Starks, a former Obama appointee. Starks is also a former staffer to then Sen. Barack Obama and a former attorney with Williams & Connolly in Washington.
His Obama-era government service includes serving under Attorney General Eric Holder at Justice as the lead on financial and healthcare fraud.
