FCC MAJORITY STILL ELUSIVE FOR DEMOCRATS
Biden’s nominee has met resistance from Republican senators
For the entirety of President Joe Biden’s term, the Federal Communications Commission has operated without a Democratic majority, hobbling the party’s ability to carry out its agenda on major issues, including net neutrality and Internet connectivity.
Now, delays to FCC nominee Gigi Sohn’s confirmation, the appointment that would break the 2-2 split at the agency, mean the deadlock is likely to extend into next year.
Sohn was notably absent from the agenda of a crucial upcoming meeting, held by the panel needed to advance her nomination to the Senate floor. Senate Commerce Committee spokesperson Tricia Enright said the panel omitted Sohn because lawmakers wanted more time to meet with her, as reported earlier by Politico.
Sohn has emerged as perhaps Biden’s most controversial tech or telecom nominee, facing strong opposition from Senate Republicans. Republicans have pointed to Sohn’s past critical statements about Fox News to claim she’s “hyperpartisan,” a charge Sohn and her allies have pushed back on.
Despite the GOP uproar, Democrats could still advance
and confirm Sohn along a party-line vote — if only they could find the time.
Barring last-minute changes to the meeting’s agenda or the Senate’s legislative calendar, the decision to leave her off the agenda next week leaves lawmakers with little to no time to confirm Sohn and lock in a longsought FCC majority before the end of the year.
That means it would take even longer for the agency’s Democratic leadership to kick into gear its most aggressive proposals, including restoring the Obama-era net neutrality rules that dictate that Internet providers should treat all web traffic equally. The delay could also have a spillover effect on their efforts to make accessing the Internet easier and more affordable nationwide.
Sohn’s nomination is facing a fresh hurdle: The panel’s
top Republican is calling for the committee to pump the brakes and vet her more closely for potential conflicts of interest.
Republicans have voiced concern over her past role sitting on the board of Locast, a nonprofit television streaming service that shut down after facing allegations that it violated copyright laws.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., the top Republican on the Senate’s intellectual property panel, has called Sohn an “anti-copyright activist” and urged Biden to withdraw her nomination.
Sohn addressed the matter at her confirmation hearing. “I take very seriously allegations of bias, and I’ve been working very closely with the Office of Government Ethics to make sure I have no conflicts and I have no predetermined biases,” she said, adding that her work with Locast wouldn’t bias her “in any way.”
Republicans aren’t satisfied. “The decision to delay the committee’s vote on Ms. Sohn’s nomination highlights the seriousness of the issues surrounding the specific parameters of her ethics agreement,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee, said Thursday.
He added that more thorough vetting “should be a prerequisite for further consideration by the committee.”
Wicker claimed both he and Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, DWash., had asked staff “to obtain more information from ethics officials at the FCC and within the Biden administration about the scope of work from which she would be required to recuse herself, if confirmed.” Enright called the statement “false.”
“Senator Cantwell did not ask her staff to obtain more information from ethics officials at the FCC,” Enright said in a statement.
The White House also rebuffed Wicker’s remarks, pointing to commitments Sohn has already made to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, an independent federal agency that vets nominees for potential conflicts of interest.
Sohn and spokespeople for the FCC did not respond to requests for comment.