FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has appointed Sara Morris as acting director of the FCC’s Office of Legislative Affairs effective Jan. 2.
She replaces the current acting director, Patrick Halley, who will become associate chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau where he will focus on policy and strategy for the bureau’s high priority proceedings like the tech transition and E-Rate modernization.
Wheeler says Morris’ government and private sector experience positions her “to forge strong relationships across government that will serve the public interest by advancing effective communications policy.”
Morris comes to the FCC from the Department of Commerce, where she is deputy director of the Office of Congressional Affairs for the department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Her major areas of legislative and policy focus have included federal spectrum reallocation, establishment and implementation of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), Recovery Act broadband programs, and the digital TV transition. In addition to working with members of Congress and staff, she has coordinated with state government officials, other federal agencies and the White House.
Prior to joining NTIA, she was a government affairs policy analyst at Paul, Hastings, Janofksy & Walker LLP, and a telecommunications policy analyst at Verner Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand. She also has Capitol Hill experience, where she worked for the Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, chaired at the time by then-Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
