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Big news:
President Biden nominated Anna Gomez — a State Department senior technology adviser, former FCC and National Telecommunications and Information Administration official, and corporate attorney — to fill the fifth and final seat at the Federal Communications Commission. The president also renominated Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, who is nearing the end of his term.1
Here are the facts: The FCC has remained in an unprecedented 2–2 deadlock since January 2021 as deep-pocketed phone, cable and broadcast companies have worked to hamstring the agency that oversees their businesses. Gomez’s nomination follows a protracted and ultimately failed effort to confirm Gigi Sohn — a public-interest champion whose confirmation ran up against a vicious and relentless smear campaign by telecom and broadcast lobbyists, right-wing media and astroturf operatives.
And everyday consumers have paid the price, including working families trying to pay their rising monthly internet bills and Black, Indigenous, Latinx and rural communities that the biggest telecom companies and broadcast conglomerates have long neglected. Any further delay means big companies will have an easier time engaging in unjust, unreasonable and discriminatory actions, because they know this vital watchdog agency isn’t operating with the majority it needs.
The FCC has a mandate to increase the diversity of local-media ownership and to ensure broadband access is affordable, open and reliable for all. We need five FCC commissioners as soon as possible to fully move this work forward.
If the Senate wants to improve the lives of internet users, cellphone customers, TV watchers and radio listeners — meaning everyone — they need to confirm Gomez and Starks before the clock runs out at the FCC.
In the coming weeks, we’ll have updates on our strategy to make these confirmations happen ASAP. Donate to Free Press Action today so we have the resources we need to mount the strongest (and loudest!) campaign possible.
Thank you for sticking with us through this long (and frustrating) fight.
More soon,
Heather and the rest of the Free Press Action team
freepress.net
1. “President Biden Nominates Anna Gomez to Fill the FCC's Fifth Seat, Renominates Current Commissioners Starks and Carr,” Free Press, May 22, 2023
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