Senate Republicans plan to fight back, rejecting President Biden’s nomination of consumer advocate Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I will do everything in my power to convince colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject this extreme nominee,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a tweet yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sohn has an experienced career in government policy, having co-founded the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2013, then-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler hired Sohn as an adviser, and the FCC at that time adopted Title II common-carrier and net neutrality regulations for Internet service providers – provisions that were later overturned by President Trump. Sohn continued to push for tough rules to protect telecommunications consumers even after her tenure at the FCC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her lobbying for consumer protections has been hard on Senate Republicans, but conservatives are also pessimistic that she will use the FCC to censor them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the top Republican on the Commerce Committee that will scrutinize the nomination, countered that Sohn’s nomination is “more problematic” than the re-nomination of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and that Sohn’s past decisions and positions “could prove to be of concern to members of the committee.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The FCC has been locked in a 2-2 deadlock between Democrats and Republicans throughout President Biden’s first year in office, as he waited nine months for Sohn to be nominated for the vacant slot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has led many progressives to worry that the rapid appointment of a Democratic majority to the FCC would be delayed, delaying the passage of more progressive telecommunications priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n