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**MARCH 8, 2023**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** FCC Nominee Gigi Sohn
Withdraws
A vicious lobbying campaign killed her nomination. Key Senate Democrats
and Biden can share the blame.
Blocked by several Democratic senators who succumbed to a fierce
lobbying campaign by Big Telecom and Big Tech, Gigi Sohn withdrew her
nomination to be the tie-breaking commissioner of the Federal
Communications Commission. This loss leaves the FCC deadlocked, with two
Republicans and two Democrats.
Sohn was a superbly qualified nominee for the post. From 2013 to 2016,
she was counselor to then-FCC chair Tom Wheeler. From 2001 to 2013, Sohn
served as the co-founder and CEO of Public Knowledge
<[link removed]>. Previously, she was a program
officer on media at the Ford Foundation and executive director of the
Media Access Project, a public-interest law firm.
Sohn was long a champion of net neutrality. Her sin was to be too
vigorous and too well-informed an advocate of the public interest in
telecom policy. She also would have been the first LGBTQ commissioner of
the FCC, which made her the target of a whispering hate campaign.
Joe Manchin was the most public of Sohn's adversaries, having issued a
statement Tuesday saying that "the commission must remain above the
toxic partisanship that Americans are sick and tired of, and Ms. Sohn
has clearly shown that she is not the person to do that."
This is of course not about partisanship but about doing industry's
bidding. As the
**Prospect**'s Luke Goldstein has reported
<[link removed]>,
the telecom industry spent $23 million in 2022, much of it toward
blocking Sohn's appointment. A former Manchin aide now lobbies for
Comcast.
And reporting by the Daily Dot
<[link removed]>
revealed that two other senators, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Catherine
Cortez Masto of Nevada, equivocated on their support. Both were just
re-elected, so this is entirely about sucking up to Big Tech and not
about home-state political risks. Three other senators who are up for
re-election in 2024, Sens. Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Kyrsten Sinema of
Arizona, and Jon Tester of Montana, reportedly didn't want the
nomination reported out of committee unless they had assurances that the
full Senate would vote to confirm.
This lost nomination leaves the FCC deadlocked and unable to address
crucial issues. The biggest issue is that net neutrality protections to
prevent internet service providers from throttling content are stalled,
as Republicans oppose them. The commission will also be hamstrung in
policing wireless company abuses such as selling user location data, or
to require broadband companies to upgrade service to low-income
communities, or to better regulate excessive cable company fees, if
Democrats and Republicans on the panel cannot find consensus.
President Biden can share the blame. He delayed sending the Senate the
nomination for several months. Then there were three separate
confirmation hearings, further delaying the process and giving the
industry more time to build opposition. It shouldn't be forgotten that
Biden's very first fundraiser for his 2020 presidential campaign was
at the home of a Comcast lobbyist.
Whoever is responsible, American consumers will pay the price.
______________________________________________________________________
Thank you for reading these On Tap newsletters. I hope you will also
check out my feature piece
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on the connections and tensions between grassroots organizing and
electoral politics.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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