After being sworn in Monday, new Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced some of his staff hires. His chief of staff will be Edward P. Lazarus, who previously was co-head of the global litigation practice at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. He is a former U.S. prosecutor and served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.
Lazarus will be joined by former Capitol Hill aide Colin Crowell, who was named senior counselor. Although he will serve as an adviser on a broad range of matters, Crowell also will have specific responsibility for the public affairs, congressional relations and intergovernmental affairs, and public liaison. Crowell joins the FCC after more than 20 years on the staff of Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. During much of that time, Markey was either chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet or the panel's ranking Democrat.
Bruce Gottlieb will be chief counsel and senior legal adviser as well as manage the commission's overall agenda and have responsibility for policy coordination with staff in the FCC's bureaus. Gottlieb served as legal adviser to Commissioner Michael Copps for the past three years.
Genachowski took the seat of Jonathan Adelstein, who resigned to make way. Adelstein, who has been at the commission since December 2002, has been picked by President Obama to be administrator of the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service. - Bill McConnell
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