FCC Authority In VZ/SpectrumCo, or “Real Lawyers Read The Footnotes.”

[Commentary] There is a huge difference between “it’s bad policy, don’t do it” and “you don’t have authority.” It is unfortunate that those who agree with the Federal Communications Commission on matters of policy increasingly seek to cast their arguments as arguments of regulatory authority. I get that if you don’t like the policy, you would prefer the FCC not have authority to implement it. But just as real lawyers read the footnotes, real lawyers (and non-lawyers) ought to be honest about the difference between policy and authority. Certainly there are times when authority is genuinely contestable, and I will never blame a litigant for making the traditional Hail Mary pass at jurisdiction. But where, as here, the authority of the FCC over reseller agreements is well established, attacks on authority can only be the interpreted as careless or disingenuous.