It could be argued the commissioners should be technical people that receive consultation from lawyers. I wouldn't have a problem with that but I don't know that it would definitely work any better than the current set up. Either way, lawyers would be involved. One potential downside to this arrangement is the question of where the technical commissioners come from. If they came from industry, you would hear plenty of screaming that they are favoring their former industry buddys, etc.
There is no reason that the commissioners could not possess both technical
and legal expertise. For example, there are "environmental lawyers" who claim expertise on environmental issues and who use their legal expertise to actively push environmental interests. Various industries have their own teams of experts who know both the legal and technical ins and outs involved with their specific field of interest such as steel manufacturing, petrochemical, etc. The ARRL retains Chris Imlay, who, I believe, is a lawyer and a ham.
In earlier days, the FCC commissioners were expected to have technical expertise, and mostly came into the Commission with an engineering background.
By definition, the courts recognise the "technical expertise" of regulatory commissioners. That's why it is so difficult to take the FCC to court on regulatory matters (one recent example is K1MAN's attempt to attack the AM power issue windmill). Regardless of the merits of a case, the courts nearly always plead lack of expertise to rule on technical issues and routinely "defer" to the assumed "expertise" of the regulatory body. So we end up with the same bureaucracy that wrote the contested rules making the final decisions on their validity. Can you really expect "career civil servants" to rule against their own decisions?
It would seem that persons possessing a higher degree in both engineering and law would be in high demand for regulatory positions, and that such credentials would all but guarantee a high-paying lifelong career in one of the many state and federal regulatory agencies.
Nevertheless, recent FCC appointees roll off a list of legal credentials with hardly a mention of any experience in the technical aspects of telecommunications.
Which would be better, an FCC commissioner with a sound technical background but clueless in legal matters, or a highly skilled lawyer without a clue about the technical aspect of the field he is appointed to regulate? Lately, we have been stuck with the latter.
