FCC BACK AT FULL STRENGTH!!– Anna Gomez Was Confirmed As 5th And Final FCC Commissioner Today, Fulfilling Another Czar Prophecy

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So when President Biden nominated Gigi Sohn a while back I told everyone it was unlikely to happen. It didn’t.

But when Biden’s new pick Anna Gomez was named basically everyone I spoke to predicted a quick and easy nomination–and that is exactly what happened.

Today Ms. Gomez was officially confirmed as the fifth and final FCC commissioner, bringing the FCC back to full strength.

The FCC now has 3 Democratic Commissioners–lead by Chairwoman Rosenworcel–and 2 Republican Commissioners.

This occurred precisely in line with my timing prediction and empowers the Commission to rule on the pending NPRM ahead of the end of the year.

I want to personally congratulate Ms. Gomez– both in my role as the Czar and also in my role as President of R.E.A.C.H.–for really having a very distinguished career that nobody could really question. In today’s super heated political environment the fact that basically everyone was in favor of her confirmation is pretty cool. So nice work.

As I have been telling everyone out there in industry the work really starts now to help the Commission understand what a terrible idea it would be to ban all lead sales. While industry CERTAINLY needs some guardrails and standards an outright ban would shutter tens of thousands of businesses and have a massive impact on the American economy as a whole.

As someone told me recently–leads make the world go ’round.

Here is hoping Commissioner Gomez is the smart and principled leader folks seem to think she is– and that she will land in the middle ground camp of adopting the stringent and consumer-friendly R.E.A.C.H. standards as opposed to shutting down the industry altogether. More soon!

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Published by Eric J. Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

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