Keeney wins Clinton vote >BY Larry Luxner, Special to Telephony

President Clinton has nominated Regina Markey Keeney, chief of the Federal Communications Commission's Common Carrier Bureau, to fill the remaining Republican vacancy on the five-member commission. If confirmed by Congress next month, Keeney would become the first FCC employee in the agency's history to become a commissioner.

Keeney, 40, would occupy the vacancy left by the departure of Andrew Barrett in February. A native of South Carolina, Keeney earned a bachelor's degree at Georgetown University in 1977 and a law degree from Harvard in 1980.

She came to the FCC in 1994 after spending nine years as the Senate Commerce Committee's Republican communications counsel.

As chief of the Wireless Bureau, Keeney supervised the auctioning off of the radio spectrum, raising billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury in the process.

Keeney's nomination was warmly welcomed by the other commissioners, with FCC Chairman Reed Hundt noting that "Gina's experience as chief of two bureaus, Wireless and Common Carrier, would be invaluable to our deliberations as commissioners in furtherance of the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996."

She also appears to have the support of influential lawmakers on both sides of the aisles, including Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Larry Pressler, R-S.D., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as well as several democratic senators.