Gigi Sohn has weighed in on the political forces that prevented her from taking a seat on the FCC after her nomination by President Joe Biden and her decades of experience in communications, primarily as a public advocate and briefly as a top FCC adviser. Those forces included dark money groups, she said, with an assist from some inaccurate reporting in the media that she was unable to correct.

As a general rule, given that elections have consequences, presidents have gotten their picks for FCC commissioners approved, even when, also as a general rule, they would not be the choice of the opposing party.

The tenor of her nomination post mortem conversation with the Media and Democracy Project, which backed Sohn's nomination, on June 6 was set from the getgo by host Milo Vee, who billed the online interview as a "case study" of how "giant media companies and dark money sabotaged the FCC and our Democracy."

Also: Preston Padden Says ISPs Are Complicit in Smear of Sohn

Sohn said her treatment in the media was a "humongous" piece of her nomination's failure, a process she said where her hands were tied behind her back while she had the stuffing knocked out of her by dark money and "agenda setting" groups that didn't care what the impact would be on her or her family -- which included being warned to keep her doors locked and "alert the neighbors."

Sohn, who was a fan of the fairness doctrine that required media to seek out both sides of issues of public importance, said that she had allies trying to pitch the mainstream media on a story about the pushback on her nomination but that it was only after she was renominated -- following over a year of inaction by Congress -- that The Washington Post and some others pointed out the "dark money" that was funding that effort.

But before that, she said, "we could not get anybody in the mainstream media to cover this." And Sohn could not speak up or out for herself. "I couldn't say anything," she told Vee. "The White House is, like, 'you're the nominee, you cannot say anything to the press.'"

She said she understands why, but that tied her hands behind her back on several occasions when the press "just printed flat out lies and I couldn't respond." She said that Fox Business wrote that she had told friends that she was sticking with the nomination because the White House had promised to make her chair. She said that was not true but that there was nothing she could do to correct it.

Sohn said The New York Times had reported on her nomination and her withdrawl, but "nothing in between." She gave The Washington Post some credit for its reporting, but only after her renomination and not that made it to the "main page" of the paper.

Sohn had issues with some in the trade press as well, which she said printed a lot of unattributed rumors. And who pays the trade press for the subscriptions, she asked rhetorically: "The companies that were trying to sink me."

Sohn said some folks were doing nice profiles of her now and paying the issue some attention, but added that it would have been nice had there been more reporting "when I was getting the stuffing kicked out of me."
Also: Sohn Supporters Call Out Dithering Dems

Other takeaways from Sohn's conversation, which included advice to activist on strategies:

1. She urged public advocacy groups to reingage in the push to restore network neutrality rules and put in a plug for reimposing broadcast ownership limits, both issues she would clearly have liked to work on with a Democratic majority had her nomination been approved.

2. Don't think of the FCC as the only place to get things done, Sohn said, pointing to a number of activist state attorneys general. Sohn said it was much harder to go "state by state by state," but if they can interest California, New York and Illinois, they could "make some progress."

3. She signaled she did not think that Anna Gomez, who the White House nominated for the third Democratic seat after Sohn bowed out, would have as much pushback, though she did say there was some "friction" already happening around her nomination from people who don't want a "complete" FCC or a functioning goverment. She said that key to Gomez's success would be to get the process moving, citing the delays that helped sink Sohn's own nomination.

Sohn urged her activist audience to press Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to "hold a hearing without delay and then, as soon as possible, to hold a committee vote and get her [to a vote on the Senate floor]."

Gigi Sohn, who withdrew her nomination to the Federal Communications Commission in March, has been named executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband (AAPB), a nonprofit formed by state and local broadband officials with the mission of advocating for municipal broadband.

Sohn, who fought for confirmation as the FCC’s pivotal third Democrat after she was nominated by President Joe Biden in 2021,  will remain a senior fellow and advocate for the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society. AAPB membership comprises government officials who are either already operating municipal broadband networks or plan to do so.

“Until now, there has not been a membership-based advocacy organization that works to ensure that public broadband can grow unimpeded by anti-competitive barriers," Sohn said in a statement. ”That’s despite the success of public broadband to help places like Chattanooga and the Massachusetts Berkshires transform from sleepy hamlets to vibrant centers of economic opportunity, education, and culture. We have the chance to make a positive case for states to fund and communities to choose public broadband and oppose barriers to local choice.”

Sohn has plenty of experience in the area of municipal broadband. She was a top counselor to Obama-era FCC chair Tom Wheeler, who had asserted the regulator’s power to preempt state laws blocking muni broadband expansion, bills that are backed by broadband providers.

”With more than $45 billion going to the states and tribal lands to build out broadband, I’m excited to work with public broadband providers to educate policymakers, the press and the public on the critical role public broadband plays in providing affordable, robust, and scalable broadband to communities across the country and how barriers to public broadband can hurt efforts to close the digital divide in both rural and urban America,” Sohn said.

Sohn and the AAPB are not the only ones looking hard at that $45 billion.

At almost the same time Sohn’s new job was announced, over on Capitol Hill, House Energy and Commerce Committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) was announcing an oversight hearing in the Communications Subcommittee May 10 focusing on how that $45 billion is being spent. ”Americans deserve every assurance these resources are truly going to help the unserved communities that need them most,“ Rodgers said.

Sohn could have a tough time selling Republicans or private broadband providers on the benefits of municipal broadband. Both have been critical of such buildouts, arguing that they wind up being government-funded overbuilds of existing private networks or fail to make it as ongoing operations, leaving taxpayers holding the bag when they fail.

The history of a campaign that failed, in this case the one to get Gigi Sohn seated on the FCC, is one of bare-knuckles politics with no punches pulled.

Sohn came to her Federal Communications Commission nomination gauntlet having served at the agency as a top counselor to Democratic chairman Tom Wheeler, years of experience dealing with communications issues as head of a public advocacy group and an intellect and command of the issues that commanded respect from many on both sides of the aisle.

Many advocates for private industry have served on, and have even chaired, the FCC: Ajit Pai had been an attorney for Verizon Communications, while Tom Wheeler was an advocate for cable and wireless and head of their respective national associations. But Sohn would have been the first public advocacy executive on the commission, as well as the first openly gay commissioner.

Her historic nomination and decades of relevant experience, though, were not enough to overcome a perfect storm of leverageable issues and opportunities for legislators and industry players who were just as happy not to have a progressive Democrat seated who would give the FCC the majority to potentially restore network neutrality rules, expand the Universal Service Fund fee base or re-regulate radio and TV stations in an effort to stem consolidation.

A politically deadlocked commission, as this one has been for an unprecedented two years-plus, means controversial issues that a Democratic majority could tackle remain sidelined.

The White House over the weekend finally waved the red towel Sohn had thrown in weeks ago, saying, “The unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks on my character and my career as an advocate for the public interest have taken an enormous toll on me and my family.”

The ammunition used to take down her nomination was of varying calibers and origins. One line of attack, for example, linked her to support for a sex worker — an opportunity to use a salacious headline — because Sohn supported a free-speech group that did so.

Some broadcasters took aim based on Sohn’s association with Locast, the TV-station streaming service that asserted fair use rights to transmit those signals without compensation, but which had to close after a court disagreed it was covered by a copyright exemption.

Her comments that some construed — she said misconstrued — about rural broadband did not endear her to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), whose support, or lack of it, has been crucial on various fronts in a narrowly divided Senate.

Then there was the progressive campaign against another key, independent-minded senator, Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), over her willingness to work with Republicans on compromise net neutrality legislation rather than the Save the Internet Act favored by those progressive groups. Those groups took out billboards in Sinema’s home state attacking her.

While those groups were ones Sohn has supported, the nominee pointed out that did not mean she supported their tactics.

And Sohn made no friends at Fox Corp. with tweets dug up from her past about Fox News Channel “destroying democracy” and being “state-sponsored propaganda,” certainly not an unusual stance for progressives.

She did not disavow the Fox criticism, which Republicans have used to suggest she could not rule fairly on FCC issues involving Fox, though she has said before and said again in her written answers that she regretted the “sharpness” of her language.

But one former top Fox executive who disagrees with Sohn on many issues was one of her biggest supporters. Preston Padden, onetime president of distribution for Fox Broadcasting, who called out the “smear” campaign against a “superbly qualified” candidate.

Now it is up to the Biden administration to find a superbly qualified candidate who can manage to get enough votes in the Senate, a process that will extend the 2-2 commission deadlock for many months to come.

It’s official: On Sunday night (April 2), the White House sent out a note that it had informed the Senate it has withdrawn the nomination of Gigi Sohn to fill the vacant chair on the Federal Communications Commission. The regulator is currently at a 2-2 political tie over two years since President Joe Biden took office, which usually means a Democratic majority.

Last month, Sohn had asked the White House to withdraw the nomination after battling for most of two years against a concerted effort to block her from joining the agency, saying that battle and what she saw as ad hominem attacks, had taken too heavy a toll.

Whomever does ultimately get the nomination will serve out the term of former chairman Ajit Pai, a five-year term that began in July of 2021.

Sohn, a longtime public advocate who would have been the first openly gay commissioner as well as the first with a public advocacy background, was nominated twice and went through three confirmation hearings but was unable to secure all the Democratic votes in the Senate she would have needed to be confirmed.

Also: Sohn Gets Another Bite at FCC Confirmation Apple

Sohn, former adviser to Obama-era FCC chairman Tom Wheeler and a longtime advocate for fair use and net neutrality rules, took heat for various stands as 1) a public interest advocate, 2) a backer of shuttered free broadcast streaming service, Locast, and 3) an occasional critic of Fox News Channel as a private citizen, resulting in a stalemate in Congress on her nomination.

She was also the target of a sometimes ugly campaign by industry players in no hurry to see the FCC get a Democratic majority, particularly if it meant the return of Title II-based net neutrality rules or broadcast regulation. ■

The Biden administration appears to be in no hurry to withdraw the nomination of Gigi Sohn, its first choice for the third Democratic seat on the five-member FCC, or perhaps it was caught somewhat off guard by the need to find a new candidate if it wants to start pursuing a non-bipartisan agenda, one that prominently includes the restoration of network-neutrality rules.

It has been more than two weeks since the embattled Federal Commuications Commission nominee informed the White House she was bowing out. She made that decision after weathering almost two years of withering criticism from conservatives and a campaign by some industry players to keep the progressive Democrat out of that key position.

Also: Sohn to Hill: Industry Should Not Pick Its Regulator

But according to Congress.gov, which tracks all actions on presidential nominees, at deadline Tuesday (March 21) the most recent action was the February 14 hearing for Sohn’s second nomination to the post. Her first nomination expired when she failed to get a Senate vote in the previous Congress.

The Biden administration will need a third Democrat on the FCC if the commission is to tackle partisan issues like restoring network neutrality rules, re-regulating broadcasters, or reforming the Universal Service Fund that subsidizes advanced communications to needy populations.

In a note to financial types, former top FCC official Blair Levin, now a media analyst, said a growing list of people apparently interested in the open seat suggests  it would be a fair assumption that the White House did not have a plan B. “It may be sometime before it selects a new nominee, further delaying the moment when the Democrats obtain an FCC majority,” Levin said.

Given that it took the administration some four months after Sohn was vetted to pull the trigger on her initial nomination, according to someone familiar with that process, it could just be that the bureaucratic wheels are turning with their usual all deliberate speed.

In exiting the field, Sohn said she hoped the president would move swiftly on a new nominee. “[I]t is ironic that the 2-2 FCC will remain sidelined at the most consequential opportunity for broadband in our lifetimes,” she wrote in a statement at the time. “This means that your broadband will be more expensive for lack of competition, minority and underrepresented voices will be marginalized, and your private information will continue to be used and sold at the whim of your broadband provider.” ■

Now that Gigi Sohn has withdrawn her nomination for the open seat on the Federal Communications Commission, the musical chairs game of guess the new nominee begins.

The White House has yet to transmit the withdrawal to the Senate, according to congress.gov, but that should happen within a day or two, and the speculation has already begun.

One name that has surfaced as a possible, confirmable candidate is a familiar one — Anna Gomez. Her resume includes a stint as head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, the FCC’s opposite number overseeing government-controlled spectrum, as well as experience at the FCC as onetime head of the International Bureau. She also has experience on Capitol Hill and at the White House, and was a partner at communications firm Wiley, which has accounted for a number of FCC commissioners and chairs, including name partner Dick Wiley.

Gomez was one of the names that surfaced back in 2021 before the president tapped Sohn, a veteran public-interest activist and former FCC adviser.

A former top FCC official speaking on background said that a Gomez pick makes sense given she has already gone through a vetting process and security clearance for her State Department job — she is currently senior adviser for international information and communications policy.

Also back in 2021, another name that surfaced was Edward “Smitty” Smith, a partner at law firm DLA Piper who has experience with overseeing multibillion-dollar broadband subsidies at the National Telecommunications & Information Administration and at the FCC, as an adviser to the Broadcast Incentive Auction Task Force.

Smith also was on the four-person Biden FCC transition review team and raised money for the candidate. One D.C. veteran said that if any profile fit a presidential FCC pick, it is Smith’s.

Someone on the staff of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) could also be in line for the post. Jobs as staffers to powerful senators and relevant committees is another route to an FCC chair.

For example, current chair and former commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel is onetime senior communications counsel for the Senate Commerce Committee.

And while Sohn arguably lost her bid due to opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Rosenworcel’s bid for commissioner was successful in part because her fan club included her then-boss, Senate Commerce Chair and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller.

In the meantime, the FCC remains at a political tie 2-2, able to tackle only various noncontroversial items. There will almost certainly be no broadcast reregulation, Universal Service Fund reform or net-neutrality rule reinstatement until Biden can nominate a new candidate, who will then need to have a nomination hearing, a successful vote out of committee, then a full Senate vote. ■

Democratic FCC nominee Gigi Sohn has asked President Joe Biden to withdraw her nomination after battling for most of two years against a concerted effort to block her from joining the agency, saying that battle and what she saw as ad hominem attacks, had taken too heavy a toll.

“Last night after discussions with my family and careful consideration, I made the decision to ask President Biden to withdraw my nomination to the Federal Communications Commission,” Sohn said in a statement. (The full statement is below.)

While West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin this week said he would vote against  Sohn, she was already planning to withdraw her nomination, according to a source familiar with her thinking.

Sohn, a longtime public advocate who would have been the first openly gay commissioner as well as the first with a public advocacy background, was nominated twice and went through three confirmation hearings but was unable to secure all the Democratic votes in the Senate she would have needed to be confirmed.

She faced major headwinds from industry over her support for network neutrality rules and broadcast regulations.

She also drew criticism for some tweets critical of Fox News Channel that angered conservatives.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) a member of the Senate Commerce Committee that vetted her nomination and one of Sohn’s harshest critics, was celebrating the news.

“The withdrawal of Ms. Sohn’s nomination is a major victory and represents a strong bipartisan agreement that we need a fair and impartial candidate who can receive the support needed for confirmation,” he said. “The FCC is not a place for partisan activists; free speech is too important. Now, it’s time for the Biden administration to put forth a nominee who can be confirmed by the full Senate and is committed to serving as an even-handed and truly independent regulator.”

The general wisdom was that the “bipartisan agreement” came down to only one or two Democrats who had some issues with Sohn, along with Republicans who were massed against her given her progressive resume and at the urging of industry players.

There was no celebration at INCOMPAS, whose members include competitive carriers and net neutrality fans in the tech community.

“Throughout this entire process, Gigi has acted with the utmost integrity and honesty,” INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering said. “Despite the relentless attacks on her character, she stood strong and never wavered in her commitment to fight for competition-based policies. While we are disappointed in this result, we are extremely proud of her and look forward to finding ways to work with her to advocate on behalf of consumers and competition.”

Evan Greer, director of network-neutrality proponent Fight for the Future, said: “Let’s be perfectly clear: Democrats promised to restore net neutrality and FCC oversight of telecom monopolies, and instead they caved to corporate interests and homophobic smears. The same telecom companies that were caught red-handed funding a flood of fraudulent comments to the FCC and paying for misleading robocalls to senior citizens to kill net neutrality rules now will seemingly get to pick their own regulator.”

“While I am disappointed, I respect Gigi Sohn’s decision to withdraw her nomination as an FCC Commissioner," said Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). "Throughout the past 16 months, Ms. Sohn has demonstrated her expertise in telecommunications law, deep experience and commitment to ensuring that every American has access to affordable broadband regardless of where they live.  More importantly, I commend her for the integrity and fortitude she displayed in the face of a coordinated, hate-fueled campaign to malign and distort her character and record.  I thank Ms. Sohn for her willingness to serve and her continued efforts to bridge the digital divide in America.” 

“The industry won. Consumers lost," said former Fox and Disney executive Preston Padden, a big supporter of Sohn.

“Senate treatment of this nomination has been, from beginning to end, sad, shoddy, and shameful, and its treatment of Ms. Sohn a despicable dereliction of duty and honor," said Mike Copps, special adviser to Common Cause and a former FCC chairman. "A win for big-spending special interests, to be sure, but a tragic loss for the common good."

Sohn's full statement is below:

Statement of Gigi Sohn

Last night after discussions with my family and careful consideration, I made the decision to ask President Biden to withdraw my nomination to the Federal Communications Commission. When I accepted his nomination over sixteen months ago, I could not have imagined that legions of cable and media industry lobbyists, their bought-and-paid-for surrogates, and dark money political groups with bottomless pockets would distort my over 30-year history as a consumer advocate into an absurd caricature of blatant lies. The unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks on my character and my career as an advocate for the public interest have taken an enormous toll on me and my family.

Unfortunately, the American people are the real losers here. The FCC deadlock, now over two years long, will remain so for a long time. As someone who has advocated for my entire career for affordable, accessible broadband for every American, it is ironic that the 2-2 FCC will remain sidelined at the most consequential opportunity for broadband in our lifetimes. This means that your broadband will be more expensive for lack of competition, minority and underrepresented voices will be marginalized, and your private information will continue to be used and sold at the whim of your broadband provider. It means that the FCC will not have a majority to adopt strong rules which ensure that everyone has nondiscriminatory access to broadband, regardless of who they are or where they live, and that low-income students will continue to be forced to do their school work sitting outside of Taco Bell because universal service funds can’t be used for broadband in their homes. And it means that many rural Americans will continue the long wait for broadband because the FCC can’t fix its Universal Service programs.

It is a sad day for our country and our democracy when dominant industries, with assistance from unlimited dark money, get to choose their regulators. And with the help of their friends in the Senate, the powerful cable and media companies have done just that.

I want to thank President Biden for his faith in me and for my champions in the Senate who defended me at every turn. I especially want to thank the dozens of people who volunteered their time and energy to help me through this process, as well as the over 400 organizations, companies and trade associations, and hundreds of thousands of individuals who registered their support with the Senate. I will forever be grateful for their efforts on my behalf.

I hope the President swiftly nominates an individual who puts the American people first over all other interests. The country deserves nothing less. ▪️

Progressive groups are using the hot-button issue of abortion rights to push for the confirmation of FCC nominee Gigi Sohn, who has had three nomination hearings in the Senate, two separate nominations from President Joe Biden and a vote in the Senate Commerce Committee, but whose nomination has yet to make it out of that committee to a Senate floor vote.

On its face, the abortion connection would appear to be a stretch, but the nexus is online access to abortion information and network-neutrality rules eliminated by the previous Republican chairman and expected to be restored by a Democratic Federal Communications Commission majority.

Last month, almost four dozen groups, including some reproductive-rights groups, wrote Senate leaders saying that installing a fifth commissioner and third Democrat on the five-member FCC was necessary for it to help protect “the safety and rights of people seeking, providing and facilitating abortion care.”

Also: Gigi Sohn: FCC Should Investigate OAN, Newsmax Deplatforming

In the two years Sohn’s nomination has been stalled and the FCC has been at a 2-2 political tie, the groups said, “telecom giants and Big Tech have only scaled up their collection and retention of an astonishingly unnecessary amount of customer data, including the locations and search histories of individual people.”

That “mass surveilance,” they said, combined with a lack of constitutional privacy protections, is allowing for the “mass-scale tracking and criminalization of those seeking abortion healthcare.”

Given Sohn’s history of defending privacy rights, they argue, she would be in a position to help the FCC reduce the amount of personal data being collected and retained, while her absence — and more broadly the lack of a Democratic voting majority — has led to a data free-for-all.

Fight for the Future, one of the groups signing on to the letter, also pointed to a report this week about a proposed Texas law that would require ISPs to block websites with information on how to get an abortion.

FFTF says that restoring the net-neutrality rules would prevent such laws by not allowing ISPs to block websites “unless they contain content that’s federally illegal.” ■

Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn said she thinks the agency should investigate DirecTV's deplatforming of right-leaning cable news channels Newsmax and One America News Network (OANN).

That came in a back-and-forth with Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) Tuesday (February 14) during Sohn's third confirmation hearing before that committee.

Sohn said she did not know why conservative channels OANN and Newsmax were being deplatformed, pointing out that she had worked to help secure carriage of both.

Also: DirecTV Tells Newsmax to Stop Using Editorial Platform in Business Dispute

As head of Public Knowledge, Sohn advocated for carriage for independent programmers by the big distributors. She called OANN and Newsmax “real independent programmers” who got “knocked out” because someone else could bundle 15 channels.

Sohn said that sometimes the FCC was so busy working on broadband that important media-consolidation issues got pushed to the wayside.

She said the FCC should investigate the deplatforming and the related issues of bundling and most-favored-nation contract clauses.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), during his questioning, pointed out that OANN had just tweeted that it did not and would not support Sohn. 

“We have a long history of supporting independent programming and agree it is important for pay-TV services," said a DirecTV spokesperson. "We were the first pay TV operator to provide Newsmax with distribution and more recently were the first to add the conservative 24/7 news network, The First.” ■

The Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday (February 14) once again vetted public interest lawyer Gigi Sohn for the long-vacant third Democratic seat on the five-member FCC, and Republicans had their knives out. With a Senate majority, though, the Democrats hold the fate of Sohn in their own hands.

It was Sohn’s third such hearing as her nomination has been held up over a variety of issues. Under attacks from Republicans, Sohn said she was not some Svengali who would be bending the Federal Communications Commission to her will. She also took off the table the rumor she would be angling for the chairmanship.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) Tuesday called Sohn immensely qualified and someone who was truly committed to the job of getting broadband to everyone regardless of where they are or what they can afford.

Also: Ex-Fox Exec Preston Padden Says Sohn Deserves FCC Seat

Cantwell said Sohn has been criticized for standing up for free speech and thanked her for doing so. While Cantwell first thought the attacks on Sohn were a proxy fight over net neutrality rules, she said, they were instead based on industry fears that Sohn’s backing of affordable broadband could cost them billions of dollars in lowered broadband bills.

Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who launched an attack on Sohn’s character and her politics last month after she was renominated by President Joe Biden, had not mellowed in the intervening weeks.

Cruz conceded Sohn had the expertise to serve on the commission but said she lacked fairness, ethics and impartiality. He said Sohn had failed on all those fronts due to her partisanship, her lack of candor and her partisan positions, as well as her bad judgment and questionable ethics.

He urged the committee not to approve her — in what was her third nomination hearing — citing what he said was her support of character assassinations of committee members, her financial donations to Democratic members of the committee while still a nominee, her opposition to FCC indecency rules he said exposed kids to “filth” on TV, and more.

Sohn countered that while she provided some small financial support for various groups, and served on boards, it did not mean she supported all of their positions or their tactics, which in one case included Fight for the Future's billboards calling out committee members, Republican and Democrat, for their stands on net neutrality rules.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee, seconded many of Cruz’s criticisms and said he, too, felt she was not qualified for the post. He made a brief reference to Sohn’s leaking of confidential FCC information while a top counselor to then-FCC chair Tom Wheeler.

She explained that Wheeler had asked her to share the information and that the FCC Inspector General had subsequently concluded that Wheeler’s request had turned the confidential information into public information, so there was no leak.

Republicans repeatedly cited Sohn’s Tweets, though they were mostly retweets, to suggest she was not qualified. Sohn said the has made those tweets as a private citizen and public advocate and they would not have any bearing on how she did her job at the FCC.

Sohn said an FCC commissioner must follow the law and process and she was not some Svengali who could walk into the FCC and make it bend to her will.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Sohn was one of the most qualified candidates for any position before the Commerce Committee and has been subjected to smears, double standards and personal attacks.

Markey said that every day the FCC is without Sohn is a win for giant telecom companies and their armies of lobbyists. Why, he asked. “Because she belives in consumer protection and Darwinian competition,“ Markey said.

Asked about the FCC’s attempts at improving their broadband availability maps, Sohn said that would be one of her first orders of business.

Also: Sohn Says Fox News Criticism Does Not Extend to Viewers

She also said she would be included to support reversing the FCC decision not to count in-kind contributions toward the 5% cap on cable franchise fees.

Some law enforcement groups oppose Sohn, Republicans pointed out, citing what they said were Sohn’s “demonstrated anti-police bias,” again citing tweets and re-tweets, as well as over the issue of law enforcement access to encrypted information.

Sohn said that while she could understand police concerns, her tweets and retweets were “banal” and that she did not support defunding the police. But she also said she was somewhat baffled by the opposition, which she said she thought was “overwrought.”

Likely most eyes were on committee member Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz,), formerly a Democrat, who could be the key to Sohn's future on the FCC.

She was widely reported to be among a couple of Democrats — the other being Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) — whose lack of enthusiasm for their president’s pick had kept the Democrats from seating Sohn.

But Sinema did not signal where she stood one way or the other.

Sinema asked about Sohn's promised recusals from various issues — copyright and retransmission consent among them — why she made them, and what impact they might have.

She also asked about the law enforcement opposition to her nomination related to accessing information and encryption.

Sohn said she did not really have a fully formed position on that issue, though she said law enforcement should have access to information with a warrant. She pointed out the FCC does not have authority over encryption.

Sinema said she supported bipartisan net neutrality legislation and asked whether Sohn still supported regulating broadband as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act. Sohn said yes, she favors a narrow application, but would prefer Congress to settle the issue of FCC authority.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) said he was concerned by Sohn’s close ties to Google, what he saw as her two decades of pushing an agenda on behalf of Big Tech (mostly as head of Public Knowledge).

Sohn said that if he checked her statements and writings in recent years, she would find she had been as big a critic of Big Tech as he was. She said that things had changed since those players were smaller. And as to Public Knowledge getting funding from Big Tech players such as Google and Facebook, she was not partisan when it comes to money, and her group had also received funding from Comcast, Verizon Communications, AT&T and DirecTV.

"There is no question that Gigi Sohn is qualified to sit on the FCC. The only reason we are going through yet another hearing is because telecom companies, and the lawmakers shilling for them, know that when she is appointed she will put what’s best for the American people over industry profits," said Fight for the Future managing director Caitlin Seeley. 

Preston Padden, the former top Fox Broadcasting executive and Sohn fan whose support was noted during the hearing by both Democrats on the committee and Sohn herself, pushed back on the Republican attacks.

"Fighting for the right of consumers to pay for only the cable channels they wanted, former Republican Senate Commerce Chairman McCain repeatedly asked, 'Why should the little old lady living on Social Security in Gila Bend, AZ have to pay an extra $7 a month because ESPN (that she never watches) is a mandatory part of her cable bundle?'," Padden told Multichannel News after the hearing. "Like Gigi Sohn, McCain was a maverick willing to take on the industry and fight for consumers. He would vote to confirm Sohn in a nanosecond. By contrast, the GOP Senators at Sohn’s hearing today sounded like they favored industry over their constituents! Sad."■

Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn plans to tell the Senate Commerce Committee at her third confirmation hearing Tuesday (Feb. 14) that one of the reasons she wants to be a commissioner is directly linked to the reason she says her nomination has been held up for well over a year: An orchestrated effort by industry to prevent the confirmation of a “pro-competition, pro-consumer policymaker who will support policies that will bring more, faster and lower-priced broadband and new voices to your constituents.”

That is according to a copy of her prepared testimony, which was supplied to B+C Multichannel News. “I believe deeply that regulated entities should not choose their regulator,” she said, which has been the intent of 15 months worth of “of false and misleading attacks on my record and my character.”

She says those industry players have hidden behind dark money groups and surrogates to do their dirty work.

Her desire not to let industry pick its regulator is one of four reasons she gave for not bowing out under the pressure. The others were: (2) having fought as a public interest attorney to ensure everyone has access to “robust and affordable” communications, she wanted to continue that push as a public servant; (3) that at least one member of the FCC ought to be a consumer advocate beholden to no interst group but the public; and that (4) she was extremely qualified for the post.

Sohn said Americans deserved a full complement of commissioners on a commission where she could play a critical role (and represent the Democratic majority vote) on issues including “improving the broadband maps, fixing the Universal Service Fund, closing the Homework Gap, ensuring fair access to broadband and protecting consumers’ privacy.” ■

FCC nominee Gigi Sohn will get a third bite at the nomination hearing apple this week. The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a full committee hearing Tuesday (February 14) at 10:30 a.m. to consider her renomination to the agency.

It will be the third such hearing for the veteran public interest advocate and former top counselor to then-Federal Communications Commission chair Tom Wheeler. She would be the first openly gay FCC commissioner.

Sohn’s first nomination, which came more than two years ago, got stuck in the Senate Commerce Committee after Republicans opposed it and one or two Democrats had issues as well. 

Also: Former Fox Exec Says ISPs Complicit in Sohn Smear Campaign

The FCC has been without a Democratic majority for those two years, meaning it can't take up issues popular with some Democrats, like reinstating network neutrality rules (President Joe Biden supports them) or reregulating broadcasters. It has been the longest such political tie in the agency’s history.

Sohn has plenty of fans, and not just in the public-interest community from which she comes. But she has caught flak for tweets critical of Fox made when she was a private citizen (Sohn has said she regretted some of her word choices). And her support of network neutrality rules and of the Locast TV-station streaming model that angered some broadcasters helped bring her harsh criticism from the News Corp.-owned The Wall Street Journal editorial page and pushback from various conservative groups.

Her support for net neutrality rules has not endeared her to internet service providers, either. ■

Citing a smear campaign to continue to prevent Gigi Sohn from being seated as the fifth FCC commissioner, former Fox and ABC/Disney executive Preston Padden has written the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee to call out those tactics and advocate for Sohn, with whom he is not aligned politically.

Padden also said he had been in contact with Fox Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, an opponent of the Democratic nominee. He said he was able to assuage Murdoch’s “misgivings” about Sohn’s nomination by pointing out that she was helpful in Padden’s efforts as a top Fox exec to secure the FCC waivers needed to start the Fox network and “fend off” fierce lobbying from ABC, CBS and NBC in the process.

One of the knocks on Sohn from her conservative critics — Sohn is a progressive Democrat — was over tweets critical of Fox News she posted when a private citizen, prior to serving as a counselor to Obama-era Federal Communications Commission chair Tom Wheeler. Sohn has said she regretted some of her word choices.

Also: Sohn Supporters Call Out Dithering Dems

Padden called Sohn a “superbly qualified” nominee who should get confirmed ASAP. He also asked that the letter be read into the record of a potential third nomination hearing on Sohn, who was nominated by President Joe Biden to fill the vacant third Democratic seat more than two years ago.

Padden said he was afraid Sohn was ”in danger of falling victim to the worst, and most cynical and baseless smear campaign ever waged against a nominee to serve on the FCC."

Just this past weekend, a story from the U.K.’s Daily Mail about Sohn was picked up by conservative U.S. outlets including Breitbart and Newsmax. Padden cited it as the latest in a string of accusations that he suggest were the lowest of the low.

“The press stories ginned up by Ms. Sohn’s opponents are beneath scurrilous and are beneath the dignity of this Committee,” he wrote. “For example, one Daily Mail online story (not a Murdoch publication) began with a picture of Ms. Sohn juxtaposed next to a salacious picture of a sex worker with whom Ms. Sohn has absolutely no connection. This is ‘Tabloid Trash’ at its worst, all brought to you, I believe, by agents of some of the country’s biggest Cable Companies and ISPs.”

Also: Sohn Tells Congress She Will Be Fair, Impartial

Sohn has long advocated for supporting new programming networks and voices to provide competition to established players, including conservative networks like Newsmax, whose founder has previously weighed in in support of Sohn. In fact, in the video embedded in Newsmax’s online story on the Daily Mail article was an interview with Chip Pickering, a former Republican Congressman and current chairman of competitive carrier lobby group INCOMPAS, talking about why he supported Sohn and how helpful she had been in promoting the “little guys” over dominant players.

Below is the full text of Paddden’s letter of support:

Chair Cantwell, Ranking Member Cruz and Members of the Committee:

I respectfully request that this letter be included in the record of the hearing that will be held on the nomination of Gigi Sohn to be a Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission. Ms. Sohn’s politics are to the left of mine, but she is a superbly qualified and experienced nominee who should be confirmed as soon as possible.

I have the greatest respect for this Committee and its Members before whom I have testified many times as President of the ABC Television Network, a founding executive of the Fox Broadcasting Company and as the head of Government Relations for both News Corporation/Fox (Murdoch) and The Walt Disney Company.  I fear that this esteemed Committee, like Ms. Sohn, is in danger of falling victim to the worst, and most cynical and baseless smear campaign ever waged against a nominee to serve on the FCC. Ms. Sohn’s only sin is that she roots for the underdog and for consumers. As a result, some of the dominant Cable TV companies and Internet Service Providers have stooped to lows never before seen to smear Ms. Sohn.  They correctly fear that she would be a vote to require them to compete fairly and to respect consumers.

Ms. Sohn’s opponents have planted article after article alleging that she is against Native Americans, against Hispanics, against rural communities, against police and that she is connected with illicit sex workers. It’s all rubbish!  A total of 375 organizations, companies, elected officials and local governments, including numerous Tribes, Hispanic organizations and public safety officials have voiced their support for Ms. Sohn’s nomination!

The press stories ginned up by Ms. Sohn’s opponents are beneath scurrilous and are beneath the dignity of this Committee. For example, one Daily Mail online story (not a Murdoch publication) began with a picture of Ms. Sohn juxtaposed next to a salacious picture of a sex worker with whom Ms. Sohn has absolutely no connection.  This is “Tabloid Trash” at its worst, all brought to you, I believe, by agents of some of the country’s biggest Cable Companies and ISPs.

I worked for Rupert Murdoch for seven years and secured for him waivers of FCC Rules that stood in the way of the launch of Fox Broadcasting Company — the long-sought fourth free-over-the-air TV Network. Recently Mr. Murdoch sent me a note that expressed misgivings about Ms. Sohn’s nomination. I replied by reminding him (actually, he may never have known) that because Ms. Sohn fights for underdogs (which Fox certainly was in its early days), and because she saw the pro-consumer benefits of a fourth network, she was very helpful to our efforts to fend off fierce lobbying attacks from the three established networks and to secure the waivers that we needed. And I advised him that Ms. Sohn’s interest in requiring dominant Cable and ISP “pipe” companies to play fairly could be helpful to a company like his that has important content assets, but no bottleneck “pipes.” Mr. Murdoch responded that he stood corrected in his view of Ms. Sohn.


Respectfully Submitted,

Preston Padden
Boulder Thinking, LLC

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is urging Congress to move the nomination of Gigi Sohn to be the fifth member of the Federal Communications Commission. 

Her nomination has been held up for two years because not enough Democrats could be lined up to hold a Senate vote. The nomination failed to be reported favorably from the Commerce Committee, which was tied on advancing it to the full Senate. 

“It is outrageous that the FCC has gone without a full slate of commissioners while the nomination of the supremely qualified and prepared nominee, Gigi Sohn, languishes amidst lies and homophobia,“ Markey said.

Also: Sohn Supporters Call Out ‘Dithering Dems’

Sohn would be the first openly gay FCC commissioner, though her failure to advance has likely more to do with her support for Title II-based net neutrality rules and some tweets when she was a private citizen.

“The work of the Commission — from net neutrality to closing the digital divide —  is too important for this nomination to be delayed any further,” Markey said. “Gigi Sohn is President Biden’s nominee, and Congress should confirm her as soon as possible. As a member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and a longtime advocate for advancing telecommunications equity and access, I will continue to fight back against baseless attacks and push for swift confirmation.”

Markey is primarily addressing fellow Democrats since they control the gavel in committees and have the votes to discharge the nomination from the committee and approve her to the commission if they are all on board.

Republicans have called for holding a new nomination hearing, although Sohn has already had two. ■

The opponents of Gigi Sohn's nomination to the Federal Communications Commission are bringing out their familiar artillery in their effort to keep her off the agency, where she would be the third Democrat, giving the Biden administration the majority it would need to tackle partisan issues, notably network neutrality rules.

Following President Joe Biden's renomination of Sohn last week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), launched an attack on her character and her politics, while Fox News Channel also ran a story taking aim.

“Gigi Sohn is one of the most radical and ethically compromised nominees I have ever seen during my Senate tenure and should never have been nominated in the first place,” Cruz said in a statement.

Also: Sohn: Fox News Criticism Does Not Extend to Viewers

Cruz — ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which votes on FCC nominations — said it was the committee's duty to conduct a “full and thorough vetting process” now that the president has thrown Sohn’s hat into the ring for a second time.

Sohn has already been nominated and vetted in two separate hearings, but that initial nomination failed to make it out of the Commerce Committee due to pushback from Republican critics and some concerns by a Democrat or two related to her net neutrality advocacy, views on rural broadband and tweets — as a public citizen — about Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.

Also: Sohn Says She Has Been Victim of Unfair Attacks

Cruz said there needs to be “updated paperwork, meetings with Senators and staff, and a new public hearing.”

Fox News ran a story January 8 pointing to a past Sohn tweet — actually a retweet of someone else — critical of former President Trump’s handling of racial issues, not a unique view among progressive Democrats. Sohn has tweeted criticisms of Fox News — also not unique among Democrats, which Fox pointed out in its story.
The story cited various Sohn critics, but she also has plenty of fans. Those include media mogul Byron Allen and three former chiefs of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, including two former top military officers. 

Sohn is the former head of fair-use advocacy group Public Knowledge and a former top adviser to Obama-era FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. She would be the first openly gay commissioner and first from the public advocacy sector — there have been several from the private advocacy sector, including Wheeler, who once ran NCTA-The Internet & Television Association.

FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel is waiting on a fifth commissioner to be able to tackle potential broadcast and internet service provider reregulation that the two Republican members are unlikely to support. ▪️

President Joe Biden, who at first did not succeed in getting his FCC nominee confirmed — or even voted on the the full Senate — is try, trying again, signaling he is not giving up on Gigi Sohn. Sohn has become a contentious pick, leaving the FCC at a 2-2 political tie for longer than at any other time.

The president Tuesday (January 3) again submitted the nomination of Sohn to be the fifth commissioner, and third Democrat, on the Federal Communications Commission. She has been nominated to a five-year term, but since it is retroactive to the departure of the commissioner she is replacing — Trump-era chairman Ajit Pai, whose term expired in July 2021 — it will be, at most, a three-year-plus term.

Biden first submitted the nomination in October 2021, then again in January of 2022, but it did not get further than a tie in the Senate Commerce Committee, which means it was not favorably reported to the Senate for a vote. The Senate would first have had to vote to discharge the nomination from that committee — which did not happen — before holding a vote on the underlying nomination.

Also: Sohn Supporters Gang Up On Hill

The Democrats controlled the Senate in the last Congress by the slimmest of margins, a margin not sufficient to secure Sohn’s nomination.

“Gigi is a knowledgeable nominee with a long record of commitment to the issues before the FCC and I congratulate her on nomination as a commissioner at the agency,” said FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who will need Sohn if she is to tackle non-bipartisan issues. “I look forward to the day we have a full complement of five commissioners.”

“Gigi Sohn will be a strong, effective voice and vote for the public interest, and a key to breaking the FCC’s current deadlock,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said. “She is indisputably qualified, and unstintingly dedicated, winning her support across the political spectrum. As we know in Connecticut and nationwide, the challenges of connectivity and broadband access cannot be delayed. Nor should her confirmation.”

“Gigi Sohn is a fighter and consumer champion who has a proven track record of working with both Republicans and Democrats on solutions that help connect rural communities and bring more broadband competition to American families, schools and small businesses," said Chip Pickering, CEO of INCOMPAS, which represents competitive carriers and some edge providers. “It’s time for the Senate to speed the nomination of Gigi Sohn to help speed the deployment of new faster broadband networks that bring jobs, savings and new opportunities to communities large and small.”  ▪️

With time running out in the lame-duck session of Congress, there is still no scheduled vote on advancing Gigi Sohn's nomination to the Federal Communications Commission.

At deadline, her appointment was not listed among the 104 pending nominations on the Senate’s executive calendar, with the last action noted as “failed to report her favorably” out of committee, according to congress.gov.

President Joe Biden submitted the nomination October 28, 2021.

Sohn’s nomination was stalled in the Senate Commerce Committee on a tie vote in March, where it has remained without getting the full discharge vote that would allow the entire Senate to vote on filling the fifth seat on the FCC.

Without that vote, the Democrats don’t have a majority and can’t tackle big-ticket issues like network neutrality rules, broadcast regulation or changes to the FCC’s Universal Service Fund, which do not have bipartisan support.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) controls the calendar and supports Sohn, but would not schedule a vote unless he was sure he had enough support to get her across the finish line in what has been an almost-two-year effort to seat a fifth Democrat.

Republicans have not been willing to vote for her, and the general wisdom is that Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) and now-independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have not been locks for a yes vote.

Manchin’s reluctance has been attributed to the fact that Sohn has been painted by her opponents as critical of rural broadband buildout — despite support from rural broadband backers who have said that “there is no doubt that Sohn is dedicated to ensuring that everyone in rural America is connected.” Sinema's reluctance is attributed to an effort by net neutrality backers to call out the senator for her reluctance to get on board with the Save the Internet Act back in 2021.

Sinema might have needed some extra persuading after progressive Democrats hammered her — including paying for a billboard in her home state branding her “corrupt” — during the net neutrality debate for not voting to repeal the 2017 FCC decision to eliminate the net neutrality rules. Those were rules that Sohn stumped for as an adviser to Obama-era FCC chairman Tom Wheeler.

If Manchin and Sinema are holdouts, and that remains into the new Congress, even with the Democrats picking up one seat, that would not be enough to get her the needed 51 votes, even with Vice President Kamala Harris casting a tie-breaking vote, as she did when it was necessary to seat a fifth Federal Trade Commissioner after a similar political split.

Last month, a group of unions called on Congress to hold the lame duck session vote. ▪️

Various unions, communications and otherwise, are pushing Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to take whatever action necessary to use the lame-duck session of Congress to advance to a vote on the long-stalled nomination of Gigi Sohn for the vacant FCC seat.

”Our unions represent millions of workers in telecommunications, tech, and media as well as most sectors of the U.S. workforce,” a group of eight unions wrote to the senators this week, according to a copy of the letter supplied to Multichannel News. “We write to strongly support Gigi Sohn for the role of Commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and urge swift action on her nomination.” 

Sohn would give Democrats the majority they earned when Joe Biden was elected president more than two years ago, allowing the FCC to tackle issues like network neutrality and broadband subsidy reform that the current political tie has prevented.

Also: Sen. Cantwell Targeted Over Second Sohn Hearing

“The FCC needs a fully seated commission in order to make critical decisions during a period of increased federal investment in broadband networks and digital equity initiatives,” the unions said.

Currently, Sohn's nomination remains stuck in the Senate Commerce Committee, so it would need a vote by the full Senate to discharge it from the panel, which tied in its vote to discharge the nomination. A tie means the nomination has not been recommended to the full Senate for a vote. Once it is discharged, Schumer would then have to schedule a separate vote on the actual nomination in the full Senate.

While Democrats have the technical majority in the 50-50 Senate due to Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote, Schumer has not advanced the Sohn nomination, likely because not all 50 Democrats were on board.

There was talk that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) might have needed persuading after progressive Democrats hammered her — including paying for a billboard in her home state branding her “corrupt”  — during the net neutrality debate for not voting to repeal the 2017 FCC decision to eliminate the net neutrality rules. Those were rules that Sohn stumped for as an adviser to then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler.

Joining in the union letter were the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers (AFT); American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Communications Workers of America (CWA); International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW); National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), representing FCC employees; Service Employees International Union (SEIU); and the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW). ■

Supporters of Gigi Sohn’s nomination to the Federal Communications Commission have gotten together on a letter to congressional leaders, clearly hoping that the weight of their collective call for action can move a needle that has been stuck for well over a year.

The nomination of Sohn, a former top counselor to Obama-era FCC chair Tom Wheeler and the onetime head of public-interest group Public Knowledge, failed to secure enough votes in committee to get a floor vote. Thus the FCC remains at a political tie and unable to take up Democratic priorities that might not fly with Republicans.

Also: FCC Union Backs Sohn

In a letter dated Oct. 14, almost 250 groups, mostly public interest groups but also including Dish, NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, INCOMPAS and the Rural Wireless Association, told Senate leaders from both parties that she should get a floor vote before Congress adjourns.

“We call on the Senate to give the consideration that is due to this highly-qualified individual, who has dedicated her career to ensuring consumers have access to communications services available to everybody, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, geography or political viewpoint,” they wrote. “Her life’s work is the embodiment of the FCC's mission, and we simply cannot have a less-than-fully functioning FCC to persist any longer.”

The FCC has been without the Democratic majority secured with President Joe Biden’s election for more than a year and a half, leaving it to tackle bipartisan issues but not such hot-button topics as the return of net neutrality rules, which both of the current Democratic FCC commissioners and Biden support; Universal Service reform; and potential reregulation of broadcast ownership deregulated under Republican Trump-era FCC chairman Ajit Pai.

Sohn would be the first former civil society group activist — she headed Public Knowledge — to sit on the commission, which has featured any number of former lobbyists, including chairmen, from both parties. She would also be the first openly LGBTQ person to sit on the commission.

While Sohn brings a wealth of experience, including as a former top adviser to Wheeler, she also brings some baggage that vexes Republicans as well as cable and broadcast entities, including her support of Title II-based net neutrality rules; her association with streaming service Locast, which broadcasters successfully sued over copyright issues; and her past criticism of some big media players, notably Fox News Channel. ■

Signing the letter were:

18 Million Rising
2050 Hawaii, Inc.
5G Free RI
Access Humboldt
Accountable Tech
ADT
Advocacy Initiative for Development (AID)
Ala Kuola
Alliance for Community Media
Aloha Independent Living Hawaii
American Association for Public Broadband
American Economic Liberties Project
American Federation of Teachers
American Library Association
American Society on Aging
Appalshop Community Media Initiative
Arlington Community Media Inc.
Arlington Independent Media
Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center
(ASC3)
Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC
Baltimore Arts Realty Corporation
Belmont Media Center
Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
Berwick Community Media
Boulder Thinking, LLC
Buckeye Hills Regional Council
buildJUSTLY
California Brain Tumor Association
California Center for Rural Policy
California Clean Money Campaign
California Community Foundation Digital
Equity Initiative
Cambodian American Community Council of
Washington
Capital Community Media
CARDBoard Project
CCTV Center for Media + Democracy,
Burlington Vermont
Center for Accessible Technology
Center for American Progress
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Rural Strategies
Chairman Daniel Linville - West Virginia House
of Delegates - Committee on Technology and
Infrastructure
Chamber of Progress
Citizens Fiber Initiative Group
City of Seattle Department of Information
Technology
Civic Education Council
Civic Shout
Clear Light Ventures
Coalition for a Drug Free Hawaii
Code in the Schools
Color Of Change
Common Cause
Common Sense
Communication Service for the Deaf, Inc.
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Community Media Center Of Marin
Community Tech Network
CompTIA
Computer Reach
Connect Your Community Institute
Consumer Technology Association (CTA)
Consumers for Safe Cell Phones
Davis Media Access
Demand Progress
Derry Community Access Media
Detroit Community Technology Project
Digital Connect Initiative
Digital Equity Institute
Digital Equity Learning Network of King
County
Digital Equity Research Center
Digitunity
DISH
Duluth Public Access Community Television
Economic Security Project Action
EducationSuperHighway
Electronic Frontier Foundation
EMF Safety Network
Engine
Environmental Working Group
EveryoneOn
Falmouth Community Television Corp, Inc.
Families Advocating for Chemical and Toxics
Safety
Fight for the Future
Former Georgia State Senator Judson Hill
Framingham Public Access Corporation
Free Press Action
Friends of Makakilo
Friends Of Waimānalo
Fuse.Cloud
Future of Music Coalition
Georgette Stevens, President, Wai’anae
Protestant Church
GLAAD
Golden Frog, GmbH
Granite Telecommunications, LLC
Greater Northshire Access Television, Inc.
Greenfield Community Television
Greenpeace USA
GWI
Hadley Media - Town of Hadley
Harrison Edwards, Inc.
Hawai‘i Friends of Restorative Justice
Hawai’i Pono’ī Coalition
Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking
Hawaii Broadband and Digital Equity Office
Hawaii International Film Festival
Hispanic Federation
Human Rights Campaign
Hustle
INCOMPAS
Indivisible Sacramento
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition)
Jack Straw Cultural Center
JAG - Jersey Access Group
Japanese American Citizens League
Kipahulu Ohana, Inc.
KOKO LP - 96.3 FM Hana Maui
Lake Champlain Access Television
Last Tree Laws
Latinx Digital Leaders Now
LGBTQ Victory Institute
Literacy Assistance Center
Literacy Source
Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
Local TV, Inc. (LTV)
Los Angeles County Economic Development
Corporation (LAEDC)
LULAC Illinois Education Council 5238
Maine Community Media Association
Massachusetts Community Media, Inc.
Medfield TV
Media Alliance
Media, Inequality & Change Center
MediaJustice
MetroEast Community Media
Mobile Citizen
mohuman
Motor House
Movement Labs
MoveOn
Muslim Advocates
Nantucket Community Television, Inc.
National Association of Housing Cooperatives
National Association of Telecommunications
Officers & Advisors (NATOA)
National Association of the Deaf (NAD)
National Collaborative for Digital Equity
National Council of Asian Pacific Americans
(NCAPA)
National Digital Equity Center
National Digital Inclusion Alliance
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
National Treasury Employees Union
National Urban League
Native Public Media
New America's Open Technology Institute
New Hampshire Coalition for Community Media
North Shore TV
Northwest Access TV
Norway Paris Community TV
NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association
NTEN
OCA - Asian Pacific American Advocates
OD Action
Office for Community Technology, City of
Portland, Oregon
‘Olelo Community Media
Omaha Community Broadcasting
Open MIC (Open Media and Information
Companies Initiative)
Open Works
OpenMedia
Orion Neighborhood Television
Other98
Our Revolution
Outpost Publishers Cooperative
Pacific American Foundation
Partners Bridging the Digital Divide
PCs for People
Peabody TV
People's Parity Project
PhillyCAM
Progress America
Progressive Change Campaign Committee
Public Health Innovators, LLC
Public Knowledge
Rebuild Johnston Square Neighborhood
Organization, Inc.
Revolving Door Project
Right Here, Right Now Project
ROANEnet
Robert W. Deutsch Foundation
RootsAction.org
Rural America Strategies, LLC
Rural Wireless Association, Inc.
Saco River Community Media
Sacramento Community Cable Foundation
Schools, Health & Libraries (SHLB) Broadband
Coalition
Senator Robert Plymale - West Virginia Senate -
West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council
Smith Bagley Inc.
Sonic Telecom
Soulee LKO Stroud
South Central Alabama Broadband Cooperative
District
Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for
Economic and Social Justice
Southwest Pennsylvania for Safe Technology
SPEAK MPLS
Springfield Area Public Access Television
Starry Group Holdings, Inc. (Starry Internet)
Stemnastics LLC
Surveillance Technology Oversight Project
(S.T.O.P.)
SVP Community Media, BRIC Arts Media,
Brooklyn, NY
Tahoe Truckee Media
TakeItBack.Org
Tech Goes Home
Technology Learning Collaborative
Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of
Hearing, Inc. (TDI)
Texas Networking, Inc.
The Computer & Communications Industry
Association (CCIA)
The Freedom BLOC
The Greenlining Institute
The Juggernaut Project
The Kansas City Public Library
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human
Rights
The Oasis Institute
The OMNI Centre for Public Media, Inc.
The Open Markets Institute
The Tech Oversight Project
The Utility Reform Network (TURN)
Tilson
Town of Ridgefield Economic & Community
Development Commission
Truconnect Communications, Inc.
UnidosUS
UNITE-LA
United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry
Uniti Group
US Ignite
Valley Vision
Vermont Access Network
Voqal
WACA TV
Waikiki Hawaiian Civic Club
Wallingford Public Access Association, Inc.
d/b/a WPAA-TV
Wastewater Alternatives and Innovations
West Hartford Community Interactive
Wide Angle Youth Media
Winchester Community Access & Media, Inc.
Wired Broadband, Inc.
Writers Guild of America West (WGAW)
X-Lab
Zayo Group, LLC

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents 800 Federal Communications Commission employees, has come out in support of the nomination of Gigi Sohn for the long-vacant fifth seat — and third Democrat — on the commission.

In a letter to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, which failed to successfully report Sohn's nomination to the full Senate for a vote, NTEU said it was concerned about the continued vacancy and that Sohn was a highly qualified nominee whose nomination should be moved out of committee for a floor vote.

Also: Sohn Will Recuse Herself from Retrans, Copyright Issues

“NTEU believes that Ms. Gigi Sohn is a highly qualified nominee,” NETU national president Anthony Reardon said. “She is a former staff member of the FCC and knows the agency well and she would be an excellent member of the Commission. Furthermore, I feel that any further delay in the confirmation of her nomination threatens to inhibit progress at the FCC to the detriment of both the workforce and the American consumer.

“It is time for the country to allow this Commission and its employees to be fully staffed and functioning,” he added. “Ms. Sohn has a stellar record as a telecom expert. I would urge you and your staff can do all that you are able to move this nomination forward.” 

A supporter of Sohn said it was the first time NTEU had endorsed an FCC candidate. A representative of the union was not available at press time to confirm that.

The FCC has been without the Democratic majority secured with President Joe Biden’s election for over a year and a half, leaving it to tackle bipartisan issues but not such hot-button topics as the return of net neutrality rules, which both the current two Democratic FCC commissioners and Biden support; Universal Service reform; and potential reregulation of broadcast ownership deregulated under Republican FCC chairman Ajit Pai.

Sohn would be the first former civil society group activist — she headed Public Knowledge — to sit on the commission, which has featured any number of former lobbyists, including chairmen, from both parties.

While Sohn brings a wealth of experience, including as a former top adviser to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, she also brings some baggage that vexes Republicans as well as cable and broadcast entities, including her support of Title II-based net neutrality rules; her association with streaming service Locast, which broadcasters successfully sued over copyright issues, and her past criticism of some big media players, notably Fox News Channel. ▪️

Advocacy group MediaJustice is calling for the “urgent” confirmation of Gigi Sohn to the fifth seat on the five-member Federal Communications Commission, with only two weeks before Congress adjourns for its August recess.

The group cited her advocacy for communications equity, as well as for net neutrality rules.

Unless Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) schedules a vote to discharge Sohn's nomination from the Senate Commerce Committee, which failed to favorably report her out of the panel, then holds a vote on the nomination itself before that August recess, the chances she will get confirmed and installed to provide for a full commission and are slim at best. MediaJustice conceded those prospects are waning, which is why they say it is urgent to confirm within the next two weeks.

Also: Gigi Sohn’s FCC Prospects Fading Absent Senate Action ASAP

Sohn was nominated by President Joe Biden back in October 2021 to the pivotal fifth seat on the FCC, one that would give it the Democratic majority it needs to restore network-neutrality rules or pursue other policy goals unlikely to get Republican buy-in. But her nomination has stalled amid criticism from Republicans and others over issues including her support for the FCC’s Obama-era network neutrality rules, her criticism of Fox News Channel and her involvement with the broadcast-TV streaming platform Locast, which was shuttered after the Big Four broadcasters sued it for copyright infringement.

And there is scant time for Biden to nominate a substitute and get that person confirmed before Congress gets in re-election mode for the midterms.

A Democrat — Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — is said to be the holdout vote that could put Sohn into the FCC vacancy, giving Democrats a further reason to criticize Manchin after he declined to support the president's climate and energy legislation, citing inflation.

“For over a year, Congressional leadership has left us without a functioning Federal Communications Commission capable of addressing the harms of digital discrimination and digital redlining,” MediaJustice executive director Steven Renderos said.

MediaJustice comprises more than 100 organizations whose goal is to advance communications access for various underrepresented groups — low-income, minorities, the incarcerated. It said Sohn has worked toward such advancement in her past life as a top aide Tom Wheeler, the FCC‘s chair during President Barack Obama’s second term. The group is also a big fan of net-neutrality rules that Sohn stumped for while at the FCC and when she headed Public Knowledge.

Also: Sohn Fans Call Out Dithering Dems

“Gigi Sohn has dedicated her career to defending the public interest, bringing the voice of everyday people into what were once closed-door meetings regarding communications and technology policy,“ Renderos said. ”Congress must take action and confirm Sohn as FCC Commissioner now.” 

At a Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council Zoom event Wednesday, co-moderator and former FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein conceded that while time for a Sohn confirmation was growing short, there was also a lame-duck session in Congress after the midterms. He noted that he was twice confirmed during a lame duck session, including after one news report that his nomination was “toast.” ■

With the News Corp.-co-owned New York Post and The Wall Street Journal opinion pages having hosted some serious criticisms of FCC-nominee-in-limbo Gigi Sohn, the New York Daily News provided some space over the weekend for the opposite view: Sohn is a good candidate who is being blocked by Republicans and lacks sufficient help from "dithering Democrats."

In Sunday’s edition, Sohn supporters Gloria Tristani, herself a former Democratic Federal Communications Commission member, and Jessica Gonzalez, co-CEO of  Free Press Action, said, “All Democrats should stand up for Sohn.”

The reigning wisdom has it that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is the Democrat not yet on board with Sohn, and that if he were perhaps even a couple of Republicans might support her.

Also: Byron Allen Urges FCC to Confirm Gigi Sohn

Tristani and Gonzalez pointed out that it has been 500 days since the FCC had a full complement of five commissioners.

Sohn, former adviser to then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler and longtime advocate for fair use and net neutrality rules, has taken heat for various stands as a public interest advocate, backer of shuttered free broadcast streaming service, Locast, and occasional Fox News critic, resulting in a stalemate in Congress on her nomination.

Sohn‘s nomination is an historic one, as she would be the first LGBTIQ+ member of the commission.

"The power to return the FCC to full strength rests with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, but so far he’s refused to use it," Tristani and Gonzalez wrote. "That’s harming millions of people, especially working people trying to pay their rising monthly bills and those in Black, Latino and other communities long underserved by the biggest phone and cable companies."

Talk inside the Beltway is that Schumer, while supportive of Sohn, doesn't want to bring the nomination to the floor without the votes for confirmation.

Tristani and Gonzalez are particularly interested in getting Sohn on the commission so a Democratic majority can start work on non-bipartisan issues, like net neutrality rules and possibly media ownership reregulation. 

"Of course, the broadcast, cable and phone companies don’t want the FCC to function, so they’ve launched a smear campaign against Sohn, misrepresenting her record repeatedly and dispatching an army of lobbyists to disparage her," they wrote.

Broadcast networks — News Corp.'s Fox is one of them — have had issues with Sohn over her support of Locast — she was a board member — which they successfully sued to shut down. A court concluded that Locast was not due the copyright carve-out it asserted in streaming TV station signals without payment or permission. As head of Public Knowledge, a big backer of fair-use copyright carveouts, Locast was right in Sohn's wheelhouse.

Cable and telecom ISPs also certainly have their own issues with any FCC effort to restore net neutrality rules.

Also: Preston Padden Says Sohn Deserves FCC Seat

But Tristani and Gonzalez don't let fellow Democrats off the hook, either. “Instead of confronting the dishonest attacks on their nominee, Democratic leaders have dithered and delayed,” they said. “Schumer may be reluctant to call a vote for Sohn without clear commitments from 50 senators, but a small set of holdouts won’t commit unless a vote is called. And so Sohn waits as the midterm elections inch closer, and the Democrats risk losing power in Congress.”

While prospects are dimming for Sohn given the handful of legislative days before the August recess and then the focus on midterms, one fan and former Democratic FCC official suggests all is not lost, pointing out that commissioner Nathan Simington was speedily confirmed after then-President Donald Trump pulled commissioner Michael O’Rielly’s nomination. “[T]he Republicans got Simington through very quickly;  perhaps the Dems could get someone else through quickly, too,” he said.

But absent that, another former FCC official on the other side of the aisle suggested dim prospects for getting a fifth commissioner before sometime next year. “Even if Biden were to nominate someone else other than Sohn, I don't believe Senate ranking member Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will allow a confirmation this year. Also, there just aren't enough legislative days left to take up something as [relatively] lowly as an FCC commissioner. Bigger fights will consume floor time.” ■

It’s not looking good for Gigi Sohn’s nomination to fill the third Democratic seat on the Federal Communications Commission, one that’s extremely long-vacant  — for well over a year — and would give the Biden FCC the majority it needs to restore network-neutrality rules or do other things Republicans won’t sign off on. 

The legislative days are dwindling down to a precious few. There are only about four weeks left on the Senate legislative calendar before the August recess, after which lawmakers will be focused on getting themselves re-elected in the midterms.

Sohn was a top adviser to Tom Wheeler, who served as FCC chairman during President Barack Obama’s second term, and was head of the liberal advocacy group Public Knowledge. During the confirmation process, she has taken fire from Republicans and industry opponents for issues including her support for the FCC’s Wheeler-era network neutrality rules, her criticism of Fox News Channel and her involvement with the broadcast-TV streaming platform Locast, which was shuttered after the Big Four broadcasters sued it for copyright infringement.

Her critics appear to be smelling blood.

In an opinion piece, Charlie Gasparino, a senior correspondent for Fox Business and columnist for the The New York Post joined the co-News Corp.-owned The Wall Street Journal in hammering Sohn, as well as the Biden administration for picking her.

Conservative critic and academic Jeffrey McCall, in an opinion piece in The Hill, says Sohn's confirmation has been held up by "bureaucratic wrangling" and is the victim of "bad partisan optics," but that barring some breakthrough with GOP senators, is is time for Sohn to step aside given that time was running out to find a new nominee.

S&P Global telecom/media analyst David DiMolfetta said Sohn has been a victim of bad timing and luck, as well as opposition from a number of legislators.

Even one of her big supporters, Free Press, signaled last week that time was running out. Putting out an all-points bulletin to supporters to press Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to hold a vote on Sohn's nomination, it said that "depending on how the midterm elections go — we may go through Biden’s entire first term without a fully staffed FCC."

The general wisdom is that the Republicans are generally opposed and that Democrat Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is a holdout on that side in an evenly divided Senate, though there is some argument that a Republican or two might vote for her if Manchin did and other Democrats said to be lukewarm on the nomination supported her. Absent that, though they are said not to want to be the Republican who tipped the balance in her favor if Manchin cannot be brought around.

Manchin's office had not returned a request for comment at press time. ▪️

Why would a fiercely nonpartisan national grassroots organization like the Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) call for the U.S. Senate to confirm a progressive Federal Communications Commission (FCC) nominee like Gigi Sohn? Because she is imminently qualified for the job, and she would work to improve the lives of children and families.

While we at the PTC don’t always agree with Ms. Sohn on matters of public policy, I’ve had the pleasure to know her for almost two decades, and to work together with her on issues of mutual interest and concern. I cannot think of a candidate who would be more familiar, and more abreast, of the myriad and very complicated issues – especially those of concern to families – that come before the FCC. Regardless of which box on a ballot you tend to check, it is indisputable that she is exceptionally well-qualified to serve as an FCC commissioner.

Also: Newsmax Backs Sohn

Gigi Sohn brings a vital perspective to the FCC that is urgently needed: She is a mom. Today’s entertainment media landscape has never been more dangerous for children, and never more concerning for parents. Several years ago, the PTC had grown increasingly frustrated over the lack of the FCC’s enforcement of longstanding broadcast indecency laws, despite clear and convincing evidence of violations. Ms. Sohn, in her capacity as an adviser to then-Chairman Tom Wheeler, brokered a meeting to address our concerns. After hearing us out, and after investigating the facts of specific un-adjudicated indecency complaints, the FCC acted unanimously and levied its first indecency fine in years.

Unfortunately, some of the big, behemoth media corporations are doing everything they can to prevent her confirmation, and they won’t allow the truth to interfere with the narrative they want you to believe. It is rare to find an issue where the corporate parents of Fox News and MSNBC agree, however, both News Corporation and Comcast have invested heavily to kill the Sohn nomination. And it is precisely their reasons for doing so that should spur bipartisan support to confirm her.

Increasing the number of journalistic voices – both on the left and on the right – should be warmly welcomed as our nation passionately debates so many vexing issues. For decades, Sohn has been one of the fiercest advocates for more voices, and for more competition. Apparently, that is such a threat to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation that he has invested numerous Fox News segments, and numerous Wall Street Journal editorials, to eradicate potential Republican support for her confirmation. Yet other conservative news organizations, such as Newsmax, have openly endorsed Sohn’s confirmation.

Also: WSJ Takes Fresh Aim at Sohn Nomination

Much is said about the revolving door between government regulators and the industries they ostensibly regulate, and rightly so. Unlike some FCC nominees in recent years, Sohn has no financial allegiance to the very industry sectors over which the FCC holds regulatory oversight. That’s why her nomination is so refreshing. Rather than protecting a corporate interest, Sohn’s entire career has been dedicated to serving the public interest, and to holding powerful media corporations publicly to account. I cannot think of a time in our nation’s history when that perspective has been more important.

We share many of the same values and have worked in support of many of the same causes as those who are currently impeding her confirmation. For those Senators on both sides of the aisle who have previously – and rightly – advocated for the confirmation of a nominee who is indisputably well-qualified but who faces fierce partisan opposition, we call on you to heed your own words. Ms. Sohn is exceptionally well-qualified to serve our nation as an FCC Commissioner. We call on the Senate to confirm her, and to permit her to serve in that capacity free from any recusals or encumbrances foisted upon her by the very industry over which the Commission has regulatory authority. ■

While some argue the FCC could issue the report without the commissioners having to vote, Feld says they have got that wrong because the statute directs the commission to do it, and that means the full commission under regular process, which means a vote. "[T]here is no statutory mechanism for the FCC to issue the report...without a Commission vote," he said.

Sohn was nominated for the vacant fifth FCC seat, one that represents a Democratic majority that would allow the agency to proceed with restoring network neutrality rules based on Title II of the Communications Act, a common-carrier designation Republicans — and internet service providers  — strongly oppose.

Also: Wall Street Journal Takes Fresh Aim at Sohn

In an op-ed for blog web site Wetmachine, Feld, senior VP of Public Knowledge, the advocacy group Sohn once headed, said that Republicans “who think there is no downside to dragging Sohn’s confirmation out interminably to block Title II” have another think coming.

The money is being overseen by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, but the FCC must first get a better handle on where broadband is or isn't before NTIA can hand the funds out. That decision will likely need a fifth FCC commissioner to prevent a stalemate.

By his reasoning, how the FCC draws up new broadband availability maps, on which the billions in subsidies hinge, is one of the contentious issues that will require a Democratic majority to avoid a stalemate that would prevent any movement on the mapping front.

While Republicans on the commission are likely to want the money to be targeted to where there is no broadband at all, Democrats argue that price and quality should be part of the definition of available, i.e., service that is too expensive or too slow should not meet the definition of available.

And while Feld concedes it is possible the FCC could issues a map without controversy, ”I would not want to bet my state‘s broadband on it, given that I can’t find a single broadband report vote in the last decade that wasn’t a 3-2 party-line vote.”

The FCC issues an annual broadband deployment report, the conclusions on which Democrats and Republicans historically disagree. Reports issued under Democrats emphasize the continued digital divide and suggest that until every American has broadband, it is not yet deployed to “everyone, as Congress has directed.” Republican reports talk up the progress that has been made — which they argue translates to reasonable and timely deployment — and the need to remove barriers (read regulations) to investment and innovation.

What the FCC concludes is important because it is empowered to regulate to ensure the reasonable and timely deployment of advanced telecommunications to all Americans.

And until the FCC can get a better handle on where broadband is or isn’t based on new maps, the NTIA can’t start handing out billions in subsidies under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program or subsidies for middle-mile connections between customer-facing ISPs and the internet backbone, Feld points out.

The subsidy legislation does not give the FCC a deadline, Feld said, but does say the NTIA money can't flow until the new maps are published.

While some argue the FCC could issue the report without the commissioners having to vote, Feld says they have got that wrong because the statute directs the commission to do it, and that means the full commission under regular process, which means a vote. “[T]here is no statutory mechanism for the FCC to issue the report … without a commission vote,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sohn‘s nomination continues to be in a legislative limbo. While she has had two hearings in the Senate Commerce Committee, the committee vote to favorably report the nomination it to the full Senate for a vote was a tie, so the Senate would have to vote to discharge the nomination from committee, then vote on the underlying nomination, neither of which has happened yet, suggesting all the Democrats are not on board. It would take all 50 Democrats to discharge the nomination from committee, plus a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Kamala Harris, to confirm Sohn if the Republicans are putting up a united front against her.

That is what it took to confirm the fifth Federal Trade Commission member, Alvaro Bedoya, after his committee vote was tied but the Democrats mustered their forces to push the nomination through. ■

The editorial board of News Corp.’s The Wall Street Journal continued its push to defeat the nomination of Gigi Sohn for the fifth Democratic seat on the Federal Communications Commission.

Without that Democratic majority, the commission can't restore the net neutrality rules both FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel and President Joe Biden both favor or potentially restore broadcast ownership regulations thrown out by a federal court.

In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, a News Corp.-owned property, the paper's editorial board added the Fraternal Order of Police opposition — which dates from March — to Sohn as the latest weapon in an ongoing campaign. The Journal said the FOP’s stand appears to have put a trio of Democratic votes in doubt, specifically Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. If so, that would definitely be a blow to Sohn’s chances.

Also: Sohn Says She Has Been Subject of Unfair Attacks

The paper pointed to Sohn’s past tweets, cited by the FOP in March, of calls for reforming or defunding the police (in Sohn's case, specifically defunding police surveillance) following the killing of George Floyd, which arguably put her in the mainstream of progressive Democrats at the time. Fox News Channel hosts have generally been critical of the Black Lives Matter protests and calls for defunding the police.

News Corp. already opposes Sohn for her association with the Locast streaming service, a point it also made again in this week's editorial. Locast asserted its right to deliver TV station signals — including those owned by Fox Corp., which, like News Corp., is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family — without seeking permission or paying a carriage fee. A court ultimately ruled Locast was not entitled to the copyright exemption it thought it could use.

The editorial also again pointed to Sohn’s tweets — as a private citizen — critical of Fox News. Sohn has pointed out that all her tweets were personal and would have no bearing on how she would make decisions at the FCC, which would be based on the facts in each case.

The editorial concedes that business groups are not strongly opposed to Sohn, arguing that perhaps broadcasters and broadband providers are resigned to their re-regulatory fate under a third Democrat, whoever it is. ■

Backers of Democratic Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn argued that getting Sohn to the commission, where she would give it a three-Democrat majority, should be a top priority and one those same ISPs were impeding.

That came in responses to the Monday (May 9) tag team event featuring Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden praising ISPs at the Rose Garden for helping connect 11.5 million households to high-speed through the American Connectivity Program (ACP).

MediaJustice, which says it advocates for "a more just and participatory media," was not joining the broadband bandwagon, suggesting securing a full complement of FCC commissioners, rather than patting ISPs on the back for partnering on the subsidy effort, would have been a bigger boon to connectivity.

Also: CWA Launches Ad Campaign Backing Sohn

“Instead of applauding corporations that continue to fail families needing to stay connected to healthcare, jobs, school and one another through the pandemic, President Biden should be applying pressure to Senate leadership to confirm his [FCC] nominee Gigi Sohn,“ MediaJustice said. “While Sohn’s confirmation has stalled for over six months, preventing the full functioning of the FCC, these Internet Service Providers watched their profits rise as 21 million Americans go without home broadband. These companies don’t need a White House ceremony, they need the oversight and regulation that only a complete FCC can provide.”

Former acting FCC chairman and Common Cause special adviser Michael Copps was on the same page when it came to Sohn being a key piece in the broadband connectivity puzzle.

“[N]one of the White House’s initiatives around halting ongoing consolidation in the broadband sector, restoring a free and open internet, and ensuring marginalized communities have equitable access to communications services can be fully achieved if the FCC remains deadlocked,” he said in a statement following the event. “Congress must take action now to ensure Ms. Sohn receives a vote,” Copps said. 

Copps said those gatekeepers were conducting a “sleazy” campaign to undermine Sohn because they knew that “a functional FCC would hold them accountable and prevent them from engaging in anticompetitive and discriminatory practices that undermine our ability to get online.”

Sohn was nominated, then renominated, and has had not one but an unprecedented two nomination hearings in the Senate Commerce Committee. But her nomination was not favorably reported out of committee because it was a 14-14 political draw. To get confirmed, Sohn would need the Senate to first vote to discharge the nomination from the committee, then vote to confirm her, perhaps even requiring a tie-breaking vote from Harris.

But that Senate vote has yet to be scheduled and Sohn fans see the handiwork of ISP lobbyists working against a return of Title II-based net neutrality rules and, writ larger, Republican legislators hoping to stall a Biden re-regulatory agenda until after the midterms.

The FCC’s current 2-2 political tie has left it unable to act on controversial items, like net neutrality and media ownership regulations. ▪️

It appears that two can play at the game of six-figure ad campaigns targeted at Federal Communications Commission nominees — in this case, the nomination of Gigi Sohn to fill the vacant Democratic (majority) seat.

A week after a group called The One Country Project (OCP) said it had launched a six-figure ad campaign meant to keep Sohn off the commission, the Communications Workers of America Monday (April 25) said it had launched a six-figure campaign to make sure she did get the seat.

Also: Industry Groups Urge Senate to Confirm Gigi Sohn

Sohn’s nomination has yet to officially be discharged from the Senate Commerce Committee after it the panel was tied along party lines on recommending that the full Senate confirm her. Now the full Senate must discharge the nomination from the committee before it can vote to confirm or deny.

CWA is all for confirming.

In its digital ad campaign, the union is saying that it is “dark money corporate groups” that are trying to block the nomination to stave off any actions “that would help ensure all Americans have reliable and affordable access to broadband.”

Actually, the current FCC, politically tied at 2-2, has been taking a number of actions to promote broadband deployment. It has not, however, been able to move on Big Ticket issues along partisan divides, like net neutrality rules, which the CWA supports.

Fans of Sohn argue that internet service providers and some broadcasters are pushing back for fear, not without reason, that a Democratic FCC majority will restore the Title II-based net neutrality rules ISPs oppose. and restore some broadcast-ownership rules that station groups say keep them from being able to compete in a multiplatform world where cable and over-the-top have no similar constraints. They also argue Republicans are trying to block nominees in general as they prepare for what they hope is a midterm takeover.

“Gigi Sohn has long been a strong advocate on behalf of consumer broadband access, a supporter of workers in the telecommunications and technology industries, and a proponent for an open, free and fair internet,” Shane Larson, CWA senior director of government affairs and policy, said in outlining the ad campaign. “The delay in her confirmation makes it harder for the FCC to serve the American people, which is how the corporations that the agency is meant to regulate like it. It’s past time for the Senate to confirm her so that the FCC can have a full complement of commissioners and get to work.”

The ad campaign will run on Facebook and news websites in Arizona, West Virginia and Nevada, given that CWA sees the votes of Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) as key to getting enough to confirm Sohn.

In other Sohn news, the National Religious Broadcasters has come out against the nomination, saying it fears Sohn will use the FCC to censor conservative voices. Sohn has been critical of Fox News Channel and Sinclair Broadcast Group, but has also said she would not use the FCC to censor speech of any kind but would approach decisions based on the facts and the law. ■

Some former Democratic members of Congress have joined what is increasingly a concerted effort to block the nomination of Gigi Sohn, President Joe Biden‘s nominee to the open Democratic seat on the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC presently stands at a 2-2 political tie, as it has been since before Biden took office.

A group called The One Country Project (OCP) said it has launched a six-figure ad campaign meant to “ensure that the FCC prioritizes rural broadband expansion and communities,” but in the next sentence defines the campaign as “aimed at raising awareness that the Biden administration’s [FCC] nominee, Gigi Sohn, is the wrong choice for the FCC and rural America.”

Sohn‘s nomination was not reported favorably out of the Senate Commerce Committee — it was a tie vote — and must be discharged from the committee by a full Senate vote before she can get a confirmation vote.

Some Industry Groups Urge Senate to Confirm Sohn

Among the project's leadership team are OCP founder Heidi Heitkamp, the former Democratic senator from North Dakota, and former Rep. Mike Espy, a Democrat and the first African-American elected from Mississippi since reconstruction.

“Given the significant progress that has been made in closing the rural digital divide in recent years, and all the important work that remains to fully close the gap, Gigi Sohn’s deeply cynical view of rural broadband is far less than what rural Americans need or deserve,“ Heitkamp said of the new ad campaign.

That view is not shared by a number of current high-profile Democratic legislators, including the leadership of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and Senate Commerce Committee, who all strongly back Sohn.

Republicans and some opponents of broadband regulations have already been pushing back hard. They cite Sohn‘s support of network neutrality rules while in the public interest sector and at the FCC, where she was a top aide to Obama-era chairman Tom Wheeler, as well as her criticism of Fox News Channel on social media.

Others, like OCP, have latched on to comments she made in congressional testimony about policymakers focusing “disproportionately on broadband deployment in rural areas,” although that was by way of saying that urban area deficits — where affordability in lower-income areas is of concern — also deserve attention.

Also: Democrats Call for Seating Sohn at FCC

And while the project may have issues with Sohn on rural issues, NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, does not. Back in January, NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield urged Congress to confirm Sohn, saying she was someone her association could work with on crucial issues such as closing the digital divide and the related issue of better mapping of broadband availability.

Sohn also has the backing of the Consumer Technology Association, which was allied with her on fair-use issues during her time atop Public Knowledge.

Sohn fans see the pushback on her nomination as part of a larger effort to keep the FCC from the Democratic majority that will allow it to take action on partisan issues, such as new network neutrality rules or media ownership regulations.

Similarly, the Federal Trade Commission is at a 2-2 tie, with Biden's nominee for the fifth Democratic seat, Alvaro Bedoya, getting similar pushback from Republicans and some in the computer industry over his criticism of Big Tech and its perceived anti-competitive conduct. ￭

Fans in the association sphere called on the Senate to confirm Democratic nominee Gigi Sohn to fill the fifth seat on the Federal Communications Commission, which has been vacant for well over a year.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the associations — comprising the Consumer Technology Association, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Chamber of Progress, CompTIA, the Internet Infrastructure Coalition, INCOMPAS and NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association — acknowledged the Senate had a lot on its plate with “pressing national issues.” Nonetheless, they urged senators to end debate over Sohn’s nomination — a discharge vote is akin to a cloture vote, allowing for a final vote on a bill or nomination.

While the trade groups back Sohn, they also suggested ending debate was about just having a functioning — as in fully staffed — FCC “to advance regulatory items critical to our ability to help promote a strong economy and maintain our nation’s competitiveness.”

Also: Sohn Nomination Backed by Ex-FCC Homeland Security Bureau Chiefs

They also evoked some of the pressing issues the Senate is dealing with, like what to do about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its censorship of coverage critical of the war. “The absence of a fifth commissioner hamstrings the agency when U.S. leadership on technology policy is most needed,” they said. “As authoritarian regimes around the world move to supplant U.S. leadership and restrict access to an open and free internet, we must ensure the U.S. government is well-positioned to thoroughly consider and advance policies that promote democratic values.“

The Senate has yet to vote to discharge Sohn’s nomination from the Senate Commerce Committee after a tie vote out of the panel. The tie vote means Sohn was not favorably reported, so a Senate vote is required to discharge the nomination from committee before it can move to a final vote.

Republicans have been pushing back hard on Sohn's nomination, citing her criticism of Fox News Channel and past stands on intellectual property and net neutrality. But some Sohn fans see other forces at work, including a general Republican effort to slow roll key nominees until the midterm elections and broadband companies trying to delay the return of net neutrality rules under Title II of the Communications Act. 

The Senate last week voted to discharge Federal Trade Commission nominee Alvaro Bedoya after his vote in committee was also tied, but that Bedoya vote required Vice President Kamala Harris to weigh in since the discharge vote was also tied 50-50. The Senate has yet to take a final confirmation vote on Bedoya.

Sohn’s discharge vote, if and when it happens, might also need a nod from the VP.

Like Bedoya, Sohn represents the Democratic majority the Biden administration needs to move on politically divided issues such as media ownership regulations and restoring net neutrality rules. ▪️

House Democrats made a point of noting the absence of a fifth FCC commissioner--specifically Democratic nominee Gig Sohn--at the first FCC oversight hearing in the current Congress.

In his opening statement, Communications Subcommittee chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said he hoped the Senate would soon confirm Sohn to that seat. He said Sohn's policy knowledge and dedication to consumer protection would serve the agency well. He said the FCC needs a strong consumer advocacy element. Sohn would be the first former head of a public interest advocacy group (Public Knowledge) to serve on the commission.

Doyle's praise for the bipartisanship of the current FCC--a necessity of sorts since it it deadlocked politically at a 2-2 tie--came as he said the "await your fifth colleague."

Also: Sohn Endorsed by Ex-Homeland Security Chiefs

Republicans have been pushing back on the Sohn nomination, leading to a tie vote in the Senate Commerce Committee on referring her nomination favorably to the full Senate, effectively bottling up the nomination until the Senate can vote to discharge it from the committee, then vote to confirm or deny.

Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) greeted the panel with: "while it was my hope to have a full, five-member Commission with us today, we are glad to have the four of you here."

Communications Subcommittee ranking member Bob Latta (R-Ohio) did not join the call for seating that third Democrat, which would give FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel to move on less bipartisan issues like media regulation and net neutrality rules, which Latta and other Republicans oppose.

His only reference to the open seat was in the context of encouraging continued bipartisanship "if and when" the FCC gets a fifth commissioner.

Also: FCC's Rosenworcel: Better Broadband Maps by Fall

Sohn fans allege that the pushback on her nomination is being driven in part by broadband companies looking to delay any net neutrality reregulation and a broader strategy by Republicans to slow roll some key Biden nominees they see as too progressive, also including Alvaro Bedoya, who would be the Federal Trade Commission's fifth member and third Democrat.

It took a vote by Vice President Kamala Harris this week to break a 50-50 tie on discharging his nomination from Commerce after it also was tied 14-14. ■

Former Trump appointee Chad Rupe, who served as head of the Rural Utilities Service including its ReConnect broadband deployment program, has endorsed Gigi Sohn for the open Democratic seat on the FCC.

Sohn, currently a senior fellow at the Benton Institute is a longtime public advocate and former top FCC adviser.

Sohn has gotten pushback from some Republicans for past stands and her nomination has yet to get a full vote in the Senate, a vote that will first require the nomination be discharged from the Senate commerce Committee since a vote there on referring her nomination favorably to the Senate ended in a tie.

In an op ed Monday (March 28) in the rural-focused Daily Yonder, Rupe said Sohn's confirmation by the Senate should happen without delay.

"There is no doubt that Sohn is dedicated to ensuring that everyone in rural America is connected," saying she had helped develop the $14 billion Affordability Connectivity Program and the $65 billion Biden infrastructure bill.

He said that some have suggested she was not supportive or rural broadband, but that that "nothing could be further from the truth." Instead, he said, she has been critical of the FCC for not making sure past investments served rural communities' long-term needs.

He said to make sure the $65 billion investment in broadband goes to help close the digital divide, "we need government officials like Gigi Sohn." ■

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has received one of the Motion Picture Association of America's inaugural awards, specifically the Industry Champion Award.

That came at a ceremony Tuesday night in Washington, where MPA is headquartered.

Tillis has been in the news lately over his threat--still in effect--to put a hold on the nomination of Democratic FCC nominee Gigi Sohn, in part because of her past stands on fair use carveouts from copyright laws as head of Public Knowledge.

Back in November, Tillis (R-N.C.), ranking member of the Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee, asked President Biden to withdraw Sohn's nomination, saying he had many concerns but that copyright was chief among them.

MPA said Tillis was being honored for "the profound impact he has had on America’s creative industry, including his work to ensure fairness within the American copyright system, to support the contributions the creative community makes to the American economy, and for leading efforts such as the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act (PLSA) to ensure that intellectual property rights have meaning," MPA said.

"I am proud to stand up for the rights of the creative community," said Tillis.

The awards will become an annual event. In addition to Tillis, another Industry Champion award went to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy for his expansion of the New Jersey Film & Digital Media Tax Credit, an MPA Creator Award to writer-director Nikyatu Jusu, and a Lifetime Achievement Award to retiring Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) for his "unwavering commitment to intellectual property rights and copyright protection" in his eight terms in the Senate. 

“I have always felt that the brilliance of artists and filmmakers deserves protection from those who attempt to unfairly profit off their hard work,” said Leahy." ■

A divided Senate Commerce Committee finally voted Thursday (March 3) along party lines to send the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the full Senate for a vote, a big step toward her ultimate confirmation. The vote was 14-14, which means the nominee can get a floor vote, but with no favorable or unfavorable recommendation.

The Federal Communications Commission has been at a 2-2 political tie for well over a year, so the tie vote to potentially break it was appropriate.

Sohn would be the fifth Democratic commissioner, giving the Biden administration the majority it needs to tackle some tough issues, including network neutrality and media ownership/equity.

Also reported in a partisan vote was a fifth Federal Trade Commission member, Alvaro M. Bedoya. The vote on Bedoya was also 14-14.

Committee chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said Sohn needed to be seated, in part because of the importance of the Administration's broadband priorities. Cantwell thanked all her colleagues for being there, which may have been a reference to reports that Republicans had considered not showing up to deny a quorum, and thus a vote, on Sohn.

Ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said he could not vote for Sohn or Bedoya. He said he appreciated Sohn's responsiveness, but said she was not the right choice to fill the FCC vacancy because she would continue to have an appearance of a conflict of interest.

Sohn was nominated last year but had to be renominated in January after the committee Democrats were unable to secure enough votes, then her first vote had to be postponed after one of the committee Democrats — Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico — suffered a stroke.

Lujan got a lengthy standing ovation when he entered the chamber for the meeting.
Also: Sohn Says Fox Criticism Does Not Extent to Viewers

Republicans have pushed back on her nomination over past criticism of Fox News Channel and her relationship to Locast, the shuttered streaming service that was found by a court not to be entitled under a copyright carveout from streaming TV station signals without having to ask permission or pay for the transmissions.

But her backers have suggested that internet-service providers were pushing back because they did not want the FCC to reinstate net neutrality rules, and Republicans were pushing back generally because they wanted to stall the Biden regulatory agenda until the midterms.

If the Republicans took over the Senate and House, they could nullify any FCC attempt to reinstate the rules, as they did to a privacy regulatory regime under Obama-era chairman Tom Wheeler.

Wicker took issue with Cantwell's phrasing of the nomination as being reported to the floor, saying only that the tie vote was being reported to the floor. Though Cantwell first said she thought that was the proper wording, she agreed that that technically constituted reporting a tie vote to the floor. 

According to the Congressional Research Service, "a Senate majority can vote to discharge a committee from consideration of a matter, including a nomination, if it is not reported because of a tie vote in committee."

That means a Senate majority will first have to vote to discharge the nomination from committee consideration, then vote on the nomination, but both those things will almost certainly now happen. 

It is unclear whether Sohn will get the Senate vote anytime soon. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has pledged more than once to put a hold on the nomination, though his office had not returned requests for comment on whether that hold was still going to be placed.

Consumer Technology Association president Gary Shapiro; Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association; and three former heads of the FCC's Homeland Security Bureau, among others, had publicly endorsed Sohn.

Tillis, ranking member of the Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee, had earlier asked President Joe Biden to withdraw Sohn‘s nomination, saying he had many concerns, but copyright was chief among them.

As head of Public Knowledge, Sohn had long advocated for fair use carveouts from copyright law and argued that content providers were being overprotective, but she has pointed out that the FCC is not in the business of regulating copyrights and, in any event, as a commissioner she would look at all issues on a case-by-case basis and rule accordingly.

Following the vote, Cantwell gave the Republicans a chance to talk, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) extensively, about their opposition to the Sohn nomination.

Responding to that Republican criticisms, Cantwell said she did not think Sohn would engage in partisanship or censorship. 

“At a critical moment in our nation’s history, Gigi Sohn and Alvaro Bedoya will bring sterling credentials, deep expertise, and an unrelenting commitment to consumer protection to their posts," said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the committee, following the vote. "The challenges facing consumers today are significant, and President Biden has chosen nominees that are up to the task. The American public deserves our best and brightest at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to accomplish pressing priorities, such as keeping the internet free and open, closing the digital divide, protecting online privacy, stopping scams, and promoting competition. I am proud to vote for Ms. Sohn and Mr. Bedoya, two eminently qualified nominees, and I look forward to their swift confirmation by the United States Senate.“

Joshua Stager, deputy director of New America's Open Technology Institute, urged the full Senate to take action.

"[I]t’s time for Majority Leader Schumer to get to work. He needs to schedule floor votes for Ms. Sohn and Mr. Bedoya immediately," he said. "The American people cannot afford to wait any longer. It’s been more than a year since we had a fully functioning FCC and FTC. These agencies oversee some of the nation’s most problematic companies, including AT&T, Comcast, and Facebook.” ■

Senate Republicans hammered FCC Democratic nominee Gigi Sohn over past tweets critical of Fox News, suggesting that her criticism extended to Fox fans everywhere, but Sohn has responded that is not the case.

That is according to her written answers to questions posed by Republican committee members following her February 9 nomination hearing, the second hearing in that committee after her nomination was resubmitted in January.

Also: Sohn Tells Senate I Will Be Fair, Unbiased, Impartial

No fewer than eight questions from Republican senators related to Fox News and Sohn's tweets about the network "destroying democracy" and being "state-sponsored propaganda."

Committee ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), asked that given she had tweeted several times that Fox News was destroying democracy did she believe that the "millions of Americans who watch Fox News" were complicit in that destruction.

Sohn said 'no." She pointed out that she had friends and family who watch Fox News, as did she "on occasion." She added that she had even appeared more than once as a guest on the network.

Also: Sohn Defends Nomination Against 'Unfair' Attacks

She did not disavow the Fox criticism, which Republicans have used to suggest she could not rule fairly on FCC issues involving Fox, though she has said before and said again in her written answers that she regretted the "sharpness" of her language. But she said that as she had explained at both her nomination hearings, the tweets about Fox News were "part of a series of discussions around hearings concerning big tech platforms and their role and responsibility to moderate content on those platforms, including political misinformation and disinformation."

Her point about Fox was that if Congress wanted to get a "full picture" of the impact of misinformation, it should look at it in the mainstream media, as well, the implication, of course, being that Fox provided an example.

She said her reference to "state-sponsored propaganda" was a reference to "the close relationship between the previous [Trump] Administration and Fox News." ■

The broadcast networks on Feb. 11 signed off on Locast‘s $700,000 settlement of a court ruling that the now-shuttered streaming platform had violated copyright law by streaming TV stations over the internet without permission or payment.

That is according to a copy of Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn’s written answers to questions from Senate Commerce Committee Democrats following her second confirmation hearing in the committee.

Sohn had been a board member of Locast.

At the time of that Feb. 9 hearing Sohn had told the committee that while Locast had held up its part of the settlement, the broadcast networks that had sued Locast had not yet filed the Satisfaction of Judgment with the court signaling Locast had fulfilled terms of the settlement.

Also: Sohn Says She Will Be Fair and Unbiased Commissioner

Asked by committee chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) whether the Satisfaction of Judgment as now been filed, Sohn said that while all of Locast‘s obligations had been completed by January 17 and the plaintiffs (ABC et al.) had agreed on January 24 to file it, the paperwork was not filed until February 11. That was two days after the hearing, at which Sohn raised the point about the missing signoff. ■

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has set March 3 for a vote in her committee on the nomination of Gigi Sohn for the open Democratic seat on the FCC.

Commerce has chief oversight of communications issues.

Sohn has had two nomination hearings but as yet no vote in the committee on whether to favorably report her to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.

Signaling that there would not be enough Democratic votes to secure a favorable report of her nomination to the full Senate, the scheduled February 2 vote on her nomination was pulled from that executive session.

The holdup was the stroke suffered by committee Democrat Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), who likely represents the deciding vote since Republicans are unlikely to vote for Sohn after pushing back on some of her positions on copyright and network neutrality.

Also scheduled for a vote out of committee March 3 is the nomination of Alvaro Bedoya to be commissioner of the FTC, which like the FCC is currently at a 2-2 political tie.

If Sohn is voted out of committee and confirmed by the full Senate, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel can proceed to tackle nonpartisan issues like broadcast regulation and re-imposing net neutrality rules on ISPs. 

There has been a report that Republicans on the committee could try to block the vote by failing to attend and denying the necessary quorum.

There has also been an ongoing threat by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to put a hold on the nomination before it gets a full Senate vote. ■

Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn faced a strongly divided Senate Commerce Committee at the second hearing on her nomination to the agency‘s open seat as the pushback from Republicans on her nomination continued.

Democrats spent their time having her back while Republicans fired away over various issues. Both sides conceded her extensive communications experience and her reputation as a brilliant and effective public interest advocate, but that is where the agreement basically ended.

Also: Sohn Says She Has Been Subject of Unfair, False Attacks

While Democrats argued that the criticisms leveled by opponents of her nomination were part of a larger campaign by big media companies to "deadlock, disarm and disable" the FCC, Republicans used her offer to voluntarily recuse from retransmission consent and copyright issues related to shuttered TV-station streamer Locast raised multiple issues about bias stemming from her public advocacy background.

Republicans also cited tweets critical of Republicans, Fox News Channel and President Donald Trump. Sohn countered that she has tweeted both support and opposition to Republicans, though said in hindsight she could have expressed some of her criticism less harshly,

Committee chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said Sohn could not be more qualified with a demonstrated track record to convene stakeholders from both sides. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said her public advocacy was a plus, not a minus.

Democrats said her public advocacy view would be an important one for the FCC, as would her groundbreaking role as the first openly gay FCC commissioner, which Cantwell called a milestone for diversity that was very important.

Cantwell conceded she had strong opinions that she expressed, but so did others who have been confirmed to the FCC. Former chairman Ajit Pai's former job for Verizon was held up as an example by Democrats, though the arguably more obvious example, former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who was former head of CTIA and NCTA--only got an oblique reference.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who had asked for the second hearing on Sohn's nomination, said it was not about trying to obstruct the FCC, but her ability to retain impartial. He said he doubted that recusal resolved outstanding concerns about that impartiality and said that rising complications with her nomination raised the question of whether she was the best choice for the post given there were "many other candidates" who would not have to recuse themselves.

Sohn assured the committee that her voluntary recusal was temporary and limited and likely would not impact her work at the FCC.

Citing letters of concern from USTelecom and NCTA, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) asked if she thought criticism of her nomination was tied by efforts by big media companies to obstruct FCC decisions, she said she thought there were "certain large companies" who would like to see the FCC deadlocked who have opposed her nomination from the beginning and saw her recusal--and her omission of a mention of Locast as the reason for the recusal, which she said she regretted--as an opportunity for further opposition.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) suggested Sohn was part of some sweetheart deal settlement that was "stunning and disturbing. Sohn said the timing of the Locast settlement and her nomination were not in her control and that reports that the court had mandated a $32 million settlement that was later settled for $700,000 were not correct. The $700,000 had already been agreed to, but the $32 million language was added afterwards as an agreement between both sides--Locast and the networks--because the networks wanted to "scare away" any future Locasts.

Sohn said she could be fair, unbiased and "will always listen."

Other highlights:

Sohn said she never talked to anyone at the National Association of Broadcasters about her recusal, and pointed out that NAB has not shifted from its "neutral" position on her nomination. That came in response to suggestions there might have been some quid pro quo.

Also: NAB Raises Red Flag Over Gigi Sohn's Locast Directorship

Sohn said that, if confirmed, she expected she would support an item promoting more competition for MVPD service in multiple tenant entities, though she would have to review the record.

Sohn said she would welcome Congress to resolve the network neutrality issue of FCC authority over broadband to end the regulatory ping-ping game, but said that until then the FCC has the authority to act to adopt net neutrality rules, which she has advocated.

Sohn said that since her recusal was voluntary, she could rescind it if necessary, though she did not anticipate doing so.

Sohn said suggestions she would censor speech--stemming from the Fox News tweets and others comments as a private citizen and advocate--should be put to rest by support for her nomination from execs at conservative outlets One America and Newsmax, and her support from the head of Parents Television Council.

Sohn said that she had discussed her voluntary recusal with committee staff but that the White House opposed her.

Senators will have until February 14 to submit written questions to Sohn, after which she will have a week to respond. ■

Gigi Sohn used her written testimony for her second Federal Communications Commission nomination hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee to try and reset the process while vigorously defending herself from attacks based on her offer to recuse from some broadcast (and cable) related issues, criticism she said was “unrelenting, unfair and outright false.”

She also pointed out that she had had support from Republicans as well as hundreds of thousands of citizens and that she is nominated to a commission seat, not the chair who controls the agenda.

According to a copy of her testimony for the February 10 hearing, she will tell the committee she wants to “reintroduce herself.” 

Also: ISPs Have Issues with Sohn Recusal

“I’ve been a public interest lawyer for over 30 years, working towards one goal — ensuring that all Americans have access to affordable, open, and robust communications networks, be they broadcasting, cable or broadband,“ she wrote. “During that time, I have lined up on the same side, and other times in opposition, to every regulated industry. I’m an advocate for the public — it’s what I do. If I’m confirmed I would be the first public interest advocate to sit on the FCC.“

But she also wanted to make it clear where she thought her attackers were coming from. 

“It’s about some wanting to stop the FCC from doing its important work ensuring that everyone in America has robust broadband regardless of who they are, what their income is or where they live, as mandated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,“ she said. ”It’s about stopping the FCC from ensuring that the media is diverse and serves the needs of local communities. It’s about stopping the FCC from ensuring that our networks are resilient when the next disaster hits so that the public stays connected and safe. And it’s about stopping the work Congress, including all of you and your predecessors, have charged this important agency with doing.”

She said deadlocking the FCC helps only a handful of huge corporations, but hurts the American public, which needs the agency to make hard decisions.

Currently, the FCC is deadlocked with two Democrats and two Republicans, so it can really only tackle issues on which there is bipartisan agreement. That does not include net neutrality or broadcast ownership rules.

Sohn‘s first hearing in December appeared to go better than expected with Republicans, given her past progressive stands and criticism of Fox News Channel. But Republicans started to push back — likely pushed themselves by industry players — and the committee did not hold a vote before year-end. The nomination had to be resubmitted, which it was in January. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), ranking member of the committee, called for a second hearing on her nomination but Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the committee, was instead planning to hold a vote on her nomination last week before Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) suffered a stroke and there were not enough Democratic votes to approve Sohn, so her nomination was pulled from a vote.

With Luján out, Cantwell granted Wicker's request for a second hearing and Sohn signaled she was ready to face that gauntlet a second time. “I have and will continue to answer each and every one of your questions with complete honesty, and to the best of my knowledge,” she said. But she tried to answer some of those questions before they were asked. Here are those answers in full:

“First, the Locast settlement. As press reports have made clear, I have no financial liability stemming from the lawsuit and indeed, I never did from the day I joined the Sports Fans Coalition, NY (SFCNY) Board. This wasn’t a settlement agreement that I negotiated — SFCNY negotiated it, and with the full and eager consent of the network plaintiffs, set the amount to be paid as $700,000 plus SFCNY agreeing to turn over Locast’s used equipment to them. Why didn’t I mention this number in my response to Senator Wicker’s questions for the record? Because the confidential settlement agreement barred me — as well as the network plaintiffs and SFCNY — from mentioning the terms of the agreement in writing. This was a fact that whoever leaked the agreement to the press conveniently omitted.

“Also omitted was the fact that the enforceable term sheet setting forth the particulars of the settlement was signed on October 12, two weeks before I was nominated for this position. That term sheet is expressly referred to in the settlement agreement. On October 12, when the settlement between the networks and SFCNY was signed by their representatives, I had no idea whether or when I would be nominated.

“I took very seriously my duty to keep the terms of the settlement agreement confidential. But others did not and exploited my inability to defend myself. Now freed by the public disclosure of this information, despite a court order, confirming all of the terms of the settlement including the duty not to discuss them in the press, I’m here to answer the baseless rumors that have swirled around this issue.

“Second, I’ll address my voluntary recusal, which I undertook because of concerns raised at the December 1 hearing and QFRs by members of this Committee about my involvement with Locast. The recusal is narrowly tailored and tied to my personal participation in a 12-year-old Petition for Rulemaking the organization I represented filed seeking changes to the retransmission consent regime, a docket that remains open. There is precedent for such a voluntary recusal — in 1998, then-chairman [William] Kennard recused himself from a Fairness Doctrine-related docket when he discovered he had signed a pleading in that docket as an NAB intern. See Radio Television News Directors Ass’n v. Federal Communications Commission, 185 F.3d 872,878 (DC Cir. 1999).

“As experts have noted, my recusal is voluntary, temporary, extremely narrow and concerns business unlikely to come before the full FCC. But in no way does it open the door to every other industry seeking a recusal for every position I and Public Knowledge have ever advocated. Such a result would be perverse, and probably would prohibit anyone — not just public interest advocates and academics — who has taken any public position on telecommunications and media policy from serving on the FCC.”

The “open the door” reference was to some associations, including NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, and USTelecom, which have suggested that if Sohn is recusing from some broadcast decisions she has advocated for, she should also recuse herself from other issues — such as net neutrality rules she stumped for as a top aide to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. Wheeler himself would be one of those who arguably should have been prohibited from serving on the FCC under Sohn's example, given that he had formerly headed NCTA and CTIA.

Sohn said a court had recently rejected the suggestion that past positions were disqualifying. She cited “a case involving an effort to recuse a senior government official,” then quoted from a court decision in Facebook‘s effort to force Federal Trade Commission chairwoman Lina Khan to recuse herself from any decision on how to prosecute the commission's antitrust case against the social media giant because she has prejudged the issue before joining the commission. Khan is a veteran critic of concentration and anticompetitive market power and was the lead counsel on a House antitrust investigation into Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple that concluded that those companies “had captured control of key distribution channels and function as internet gatekeepers, including by buying up potential competitors.” ■

The Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) has endorsed Gigi Sohn‘s confirmation to the Federal Communications Commission.

Sohn has been nominated — twice — to fill the empty Democratic seat on a commission that has been at a political tie (2-2) for over a year. There was no vote after her first hearing in December and President Joe Biden resubmitted her nomination January 4.

Also: Padden Says Sohn Is Needed Voice on FCC

Tim Winter, who heads PTC, which has long promoted its definition of family-friendly programming both on television and more recently on streaming services, called Sohn a straight shooter and a careful listener.

Winter said that while they may disagree — or agree for that matter — on specific issues, her commitment to decisions “based on what best serves the public interest,” rather than what is best for a particular industry is “exactly the perspective parents and families urgently need at the FCC.”

Sohn would the first commissioner from a public interest group to serve on the FCC. She formerly headed Public Knowledge, which advocates for fair-use rights to content, a stand that has put her at odds with the major studios and distributors, a position Winter and the PTC have found themselves in as well.

Winter cited that public interest focus in his statement of support for Sohn, which comes on the eve of her second confirmation hearing Wednesday (February 9) in the Senate Commerce Committee, which has yet to vote on her nomination due to Republican pushback and a lack of Democratic votes due to the stroke of Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M).

“Much is said about the revolving door between government regulators and the industries they regulate, and rightly so,“ he said. ”That’s why Gigi’s nomination is so refreshing. Rather than serving the corporate interest, her career has been dedicated to serving the public interest, and to holding powerful industries publicly to account. It comes as no surprise that certain industry sectors are working against her confirmation, or to impose material encumbrances on her if she is confirmed. That opposition underscores the importance of bringing her perspective to the FCC’s leadership team.“

ISPs have taken issue with Sohn's offer to recuse herself from some broadcast issues. They argue her past advocacy for cable issues — a major one being the Title II-based net neutrality rules they oppose — means she should recuse from those, too. ■

Former News Corp. and Disney executive Preston Padden continues to advocate for the FCC nomination of Gigi Sohn despite being on the opposite side from Sohn on some high-profile issues.

Padden sent a letter to the leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee, which is holding a second hearing on Sohn's nomination after it failed to get a planned vote in the committee last week.

Padden did not take issue with holding the hearing, which some Sohn fans have. But what he did take issue with, according to a copy of the letter, which he asked to be put in the record for her hearing, was the efforts by some of his friends at media companies and their associations to "throw sand in the gears" of her nomination.

Padden himself is a former trade association head, having run the Association of Independent Television Stations (INTV) where, like Sohn, he advocated for independent voices in a sea of larger players.

He says those friends are good people just doing their jobs, as he did, but advises Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) to focus not on whether or not industry players agree with Sohn but whether she is qualified, the answer to which he said is a "yes."

Padden disagrees with Sohn on the need for net neutrality rules and on her copyright stances. He points out that whoever gets the third Democratic nomination is going to support net neutrality rules, so that is not an issue specific to Sohn.

He also disagrees with Sohn over copyright issues, specifically Sohn's support of the now-shuttered Locast, which asserted a copyright exemption to stream TV station signals without having to ask or pay. A court concluded it did not qualify for the exemption and Sohn signed on to a settlement of the case as a board member. But he said that involved a legitimate question about copyright law that reasonable people can disagree about.

What he said everyone should agree on is that Sohn "is one of the most prepared and experienced nominees in the history of the FCC."

He points out that even NCTA president Michael Powell in what Padden called "unhelpful" comments still conceded she is "a respected and accomplished public interest advocate."

NCTA had issues with Sohn's offer to recuse from Locast-related issues, suggesting she either needed to recuse herself from other issues she has advocated for--like net neutrality rules, which NCTA opposes--or not recuse from any of them.

Padden said he does not have a vested commercial interest in Sohn's confirmation, but instead an interest in getting an "important voice" on the commission, and one "that belongs." ■

Add New America's Open Technology Institute (OTI) to those unhappy with Sen. Maria Cantwell's decision to scheduled a second nomination hearing for Democratic Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn.

Sohn's confirmation vote had been scheduled for this week but has been delayed after Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) suffered a stroke and could not participate. Sohn's was one of three nominations delayed because Republicans are expected to oppose them and every Democratic vote is needed.

That delay allowed Cantwell (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, to grant the request by ranking member Roger Wicker for a second Sohn hearing he argued was needed due, in part, to Sohn's offer to recuse herself from some issues due to her former advocacy role at Public Knowledge and elsewhere.

But scheduling that hearing has not sat well with Sohn fans, who see it as helping her opponents delay or derail her confirmation.

Also Read: Cantwell Targeted Over Second Sohn Hearing

While conceding the Sohn confirmation vote probably needed to be delayed, OTI made clear that should have not have extended to a second hearing.

“Senator Lujan is a dedicated public servant and we wish him well in his recovery. While his absence necessitates a pause on some of the Commerce Committee’s work, we are dismayed to see what has been added to the agenda," said Joshua Stager, deputy director for broadband and competition policy, at OTI.

"The hearing that chair Cantwell noticed last night is a gift to AT&T, Comcast and the other companies that have worked for years to weaken the FCC’s authority and who benefit from a deadlocked agency," said Stager.

Stager argues Sohn should not be recusing herself anyway, so Cantwell should ask for the recusal to be withdrawn.“The Senate’s role here is to advise and consent, not obstruct and delay,” he said. “Gigi Sohn is an exceptionally qualified nominee and it’s time to confirm her. We need a fully functioning FCC."

The FCC is currently at a 2-2 tie, with decisions on partisan issues like net neutrality and broadcast regulation needing Sohn's third Democratic vote to be taken up. One of the other two nominations delayed due to Lujan's stroke is a third Democrat for the Federal Trade Commission so it, too, can take up issues with partisan divides.

One source familiar with the thinking of the committee majority said: “[W]e’re all frustrated that Republicans will literally do anything — including boycotting a markup of qualified, critical nominees like Gigi Sohn, Alvaro Bedoya [the fifth Federal Trade Commission member], Mary Boyle [to the Consumer Product Safety Commission] and countless more — in order to hamper the president’s agenda.” ■

Fight for the Future (FFTF) is fighting mad over a second Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the open Federal Communications Commission seat and has directed its anger at the powerful committee‘s chairwoman, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

The group sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) calling on him to remove Cantwell as chair over what it said was “her refusal to advance [President Joe] Biden‘s highly qualified nominee to the FCC, Gigi Sohn.”

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, had suggested the need for a second hearing over issues related to Sohn's association with former TV station streamer Locast.

The committee had already held a hearing on her nomination back in December, but because no vote had been taken — likely because there were not enough Democratic votes at the time — her nomination had to be resubmitted by the President in the new year, but that did not necessarily mean she had to have a new hearing.

There is no indication that Cantwell is purposely trying to slow-roll the nomination. 

More likely is that she was making sure the vote would be favorable, and there has been some talk that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) might need persuading after progressive Democrats hammered her — including paying for a billboard in her home state branding her "corrupt"--during the net neutrality debate for not voting to repeal the 2017 FCC decision to eliminate the net neutrality rules, rules that Sohn stumped for under then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. According to sources, supporters of Sohn have reached out to Sinema to tell her Sohn had no part in the billboard incident.

Cantwell had not granted the hearing but instead scheduled a vote on Sohn's nomination this week. After Democratic committee member Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico suffered a stroke, though, that vote was put off due to a lack of Democratic votes for Sohn's and two other nominations with which Republicans had some issues, including a fifth Federal Trade Commission member.

Following that announced delay, and with Lujan still recovering in the hospital, Cantwell granted the second Sohn hearing for February 9.

Cantwell's office had no comment at deadline on the letter. ■

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has scheduled a second nomination hearing for Democratic Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn.

The hearing is slated for 10 a.m. on Wednesday, February 9.

Ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), had suggested another hearing was needed. The opportunity presented itself after the planned Wednesday (February 2) vote on Sohn's nomination was pulled because there were not enough Democratic votes to secure a favorable referral to the full Senate.

The committee cited the news that committee member Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) had suffered a stroke and would not be participating, though some have suggested Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) may still have had issues.

Sohn had a hearing December 1, 2021 in the Commerce Committee and took some tough questions about Twitter posts criticizing Fox News Channel, her support for network neutrality rules and her association with shuttered streaming service Locast.

But the committee did not hold a vote before the end of the year, so her nomination had to be resubmitted, which it was in early January. Cantwell, chairwoman of the committee, had not planned to hold the second hearing Wicker wanted, and scheduled this week‘s vote. Now the Republican senator will get his way. ■

A Groundhog Day shadow is passing over the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the FCC, but it likely has to do with another shadow that passed over the committee this week. 

Signaling that there would not be enough Democratic votes to secure a favorable report of her nomination to the full Senate, it has been stricken--literally--from the agenda for Wednesday's (February 2) vote on a host of nominations.

That is according to a note late Tuesday from the committee. Also pulled was the nomination of Alvero Bedoya to the open seat on the Federal Trade Commission and Mary Boyle to be a commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The reason appears to be the absence of committee Democrat Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who suffered a stroke and is in the hospital, though he is expected to make a full recovery. "[T]he speedy recovery of Sen. Lujan remains first and foremost priority," said the committee before reporting the dropped nomination, all likely to need every Democrat to get approval. 

"[T]he list of nominations to be considered at tomorrow’s Commerce mark-up has been recalibrated to take into consideration the need for all Democratic votes in order to move certain nominees forward," said a committee spokesperson. 

Perhaps the delay is so legislators can contemplate the issues raised by cable and telecom ISPs Tuesday. Both NCTA President Michael Powell and USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter wrote the committee to raise concerns about Sohn's recusal offer related to broadcast copyright and retrans. ■

Cable and telecom internet service providers are pushing back on Democratic Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn‘s promise to recuse herself from some issues if confirmed. They‘re suggesting such an offer signals a wider problem with which issues she would or should be weighing in on, and what impact that would have on the agency and the industry.

NCTA – The Internet & Television Association and USTelecom, in separate but similar letters to the chair and ranking members of the Senate Commerce Committee, told them they had issues with Sohn‘s promised recusal from certain broadcast matters. The Commerce Committee is holding a confirmation hearing vote Wednesday (February 2) on Sohn‘s nomination. The trade groups signaled there are some cable/broadband-related issues — think net neutrality — for which her past advocacy should raise similar concerns, if there are any concerns to be raised.

Sohn has pledged not to participate in agency decisions regarding retransmission consent or copyright issues if she is confirmed to the open Democratic seat on the commission.

That stems from her advocacy on those issues when she headed Public Knowledge.

Also: Preston Padden: ‘Wall Street Journal’ Declines Letter in Defense of Gigi Sohn

In her recusal offer to FCC general counsel Michelle Ellison, Sohn promised that, for the first four years of her term as commissioner, “I will recuse myself from participation in FCC Docket No. 10-71 or any related FCC docket concerning the same issues.” But she went beyond that.

“For the first three years of my term,” she also wrote, “I will recuse myself from any proceeding before the Commission where retransmission consent or television broadcast copyright is a material issue in the Commission’s disposition of that proceeding.” She defined material issue as “one that has influence and effect on the ultimate disposition of the matter or matters considered in the proceeding.”

Sohn said she would look to the general counsel‘s office to “make any necessary determination on the application of this recusal to a particular matter.”

In his letter, NCTA president and CEO Michael Powell said that while NCTA ”strongly supports” following government ethics rules that are meant to prevent a conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict, “Ms. Sohn’s letter raises several serious concerns.”

While he said the letter should not be read as opposition to the nomination, Powell has a couple of issues with the recusal pledge.

He said it is not clear why those would be the only issues from which she would recuse herself, “given the breadth of issues in which Public Knowledge was involved” under Sohn. He said the recusal should ”logically extend“ to all the matters she advocated for at Public Knowledge, or none.

Second, he said: “Next, in the more recent years since her service at the Commission during the Obama administration, Ms. Sohn has been publicly involved on matters of direct interest to our membership. There is no logical basis for treating these matters differently from the retransmission and copyright issues for purposes of recusal.”

Arguably the main issue she was involved in after Public Knowledge was the Title II-based net neutrality rules she stumped for as a top counselor to then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler.

More than one Washington insider has suggested that her support for Title II, and broadband operators‘ ongoing unhappiness with that advocacy, was a big reason she was getting so much pushback on the nomination from Republicans.

Also: CWA’s Christopher Shelton Calls for Gigi Sohn’s FCC Confirmation

Powell also has issues with the scope of the recusal, which could cover a wide range of proceedings, past and future, he said. Sohn signaled in her recusal letter she would not be recusing from media ownership rules. But Powell said that “the Commission will repeatedly be required to determine whether retransmission consent or copyright issues are ‘material’ to a particular docket — including media ownership proceedings where the impact on retransmission consent rates can be at issue.” Powell is a former chairman of the FCC.

In its letter, USTelecom also said it was not taking a position on the nomination, only on the recusal offer.  

“It appears highly irregular to recuse an official from any proceeding that addresses two broad, important issues because of a prior filing in a rulemaking more than a decade ago,” said USTelecom president Jonathan Spalter in his letter. “In fact, the ethics rules generally state that prior participation in a rulemaking proceeding is not a basis for recusal. Thus, it appears that Ms. Sohn’s reasoning for recusing herself would establish a new standard for FCC commissioners participating in proceedings in which they were previously active.”

USTelecom said the recusal was clearly to assuage the broadcast industry, there are other issues much broader than a single industry. “Can the FCC be confident that Ms. Sohn will not be perceived as being able to act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual based on her prior FCC advocacy if, as it appears from her letter, she is concerned may not be the case for certain issues?”

USTelecom asks whether Sohn‘s failure to recuse herself from other issues on which she has advocated [like Powell“s letter, Spalter does not say which, though net neutrality is the elephant in the room], will that create the appearance of benefitting one industry over others with no precedent or rational basis."

Both NCTA and USTelecom said they want Congress to at least take these into account before they vote “in order,” as Spalter put it, “for you to assess their practical implications for the adjudicatory and rulemaking functions of the FCC as well as on the continued effectiveness and impartiality of the Commission.”

“Rather than ensuring impartiality,“ Powell said, ”Ms. Sohn‘s targeted recusal has instead raised serious questions regarding transparency together with significant concerns that one industry has been singled out for special treatment to win their support for her confirmation.“ ■

Preston Padden, a former top News Corp. executive, has tweeted his unhappiness with the News Corp.-owned The Wall Street Journal,  in the latest twist in the ongoing drama of the Gigi Sohn FCC nomination saga.

Sohn was nominated for the empty Democratic seat on the Federal Communications Commission and after some delay and pushback from Republicans, is scheduled to get a confirmation hearing February 2, though at least one hold threat looms even if she is favorably referred for a full Senate vote.

Padden, who told NextTV several weeks ago he believed that Sohn deserved a seat on the commission, their policy differences notwithstanding, fired off a series of Twitter posts on Monday (January 31) making his key points after he said the WSJ had declined to publish them in his letter in support of Sohn even though the paper has run several pieces opposing her. The New York Post, also a News Corp. property, has run additional criticism of Sohn.

Preston also sent Next TV an updated version of the points in his letter, which is published here.

One of the issues Republicans had with Sohn were some tweets critical of News Corp.'s Fox News Channel, but that did not seem to create as much of a stir at her confirmation hearing as might have been expected.

The WSJ letters editor had not returned a request for comment at deadline as to why the paper declined to print the letter. Padden shared the response the editor had given him: “Unfortunately, we won’t be able to publish the letter, but I hope you can place it elsewhere, as you mentioned.” ■

On Saturday (January 29), The Wall Street Journal published its fourth — fourth — editorial opposing the Federal Communications Commission nomination of Gigi Sohn. The editorial accuses Sohn of “prevarication” about the TV service Locast” But the facts in the Journal’s own editorial show that she told the truth — the settlement money came from Locast’s parent, Sports Fans Coalition of NY. Yes, the court judgment was larger than the settlement. But the plaintiffs reasonably settled for taking every last penny that SFCNY had!

As a lifelong broadcaster and Disney copyright advocate, I agree with the plaintiffs against Locast on the merits of the copyright issue. But these are legitimate questions about the law on which reasonable people can disagree.

Ms. Sohn’s association with Locast itself should not be disqualifying. For example, the prominent media and internet entrepreneur Barry Diller, former business partner of the WSJ’s owner, was associated with a venture almost identical to Locast called Aereo. I doubt that the Journal would editorialize that the highly regarded Mr. Diller is unfit for a prominent federal nomination.

Gigi Sohn is among the most qualified nominees in the history of the FCC. As a former News Corp. senior exec, I am at a loss to explain News Corp.’s all-out offensive against Ms. Sohn in both the WSJ and the New York Post! ■

Democratic FCC nominee Gigi Sohn has promised that, if confirmed to the open seat, she will recuse herself from decisions where retransmission consent or TV broadcast copyright are material issues.

That came in a letter to acting FCC general counsel Michelle Ellison Thursday (January 27), according to a copy of the letter obtained by NextTV.

Sohn was a board member of TV station streamer Locast, which a court concluded had violated copyright by streaming broadcasts without permission or compensation. Republicans and some broadcasters had issues with that connection, suggesting it could be a conflict of interest.

Sohn is looking to put those concerns to rest.

Sohn said she was recusing herself from retrans rule decisions because back in 2010, when she was president of Public Knowledge, she signed on to a petition for rulemaking seeking changes and additions to the retransmission consent rules, a petition that was the subject of an FCC docket (10-71).

One of the docket 10-71 changes, which the FCC adopted in 2014, was to say that joint retrans negotiations by stations among the top-four in audience share in a market-- and not commonly owned--violated the FCC's definition of good faith negotiations. Broadcasters opposed the changes, while MVPDs generally supported them.

Sohn said that while she was not required by her ethics agreement to recuse herself from the docket or anything else regarding retrans or broadcast copyright, she would do so "to avoid any appearance of impropriety and in the interest of ensuring that the public has full confidence that policymakers will make decisions free of bias."

She promised that, for the first four years of her term as commissioner "I will recuse myself from participation in FCC Docket No. 10-71 or any related FCC docket concerning the same issues." But she went beyond that.

"For the first three years of my term," she wrote. "I will recuse myself from any proceeding before the Commission where retransmission consent or television broadcast copyright is a material issue in the Commission’s disposition of that proceeding." She defined material issue as "one that has influence and effect on the ultimate disposition of the matter or matters considered in the proceeding."

She said she would look to the general counsel's office to "make any necessary determination on the application of this recusal to a particular matter."

But Sohn said her recusal did not extend to any issue related to Section 202, media ownership rules, or any transfers of control of broadcast, cable or satellite companies.

National Association of Broadcasters President Curtis LeGeyt signaled NAB was supportive of Sohn joining the commission. 

"Ms. Sohn’s recusal agreement resolves the concerns NAB raised regarding her nomination," he said in a statement on the recusal agreement. "NAB appreciates Ms. Sohn's willingness to seriously consider our issues regarding retransmission consent and broadcast copyright, and to address those concerns in her recusal. We look forward to the Senate moving forward with Ms. Sohn’s confirmation and are eager to work with her and the full complement of commissioners in the very near future.”

Sohn is scheduled to get a vote on her nomination in the Senate Commerce Committee next week.

Sen Roger Wicher (R-Miss.), who had issues with Sohn over Locast, among other things, apparently still does, even given the recusal. 

“Questions about Ms. Sohn’s potential conflicts of interest have been dismissed as without merit by the White House and Ms. Sohn’s friends in the telecommunications advocacy community," he said in response to the news o Sohn's letter. "Now comes this unprecedented recusal. The FCC is too important to have a commissioner who cannot serve in a significant capacity. Ms. Sohn’s recusal further underscores the need for a new hearing.  Senators should be given the opportunity to question the contours and scope of the recusal, how it would impact the operations of the commission if Ms. Sohn is confirmed, and whether the recusal was developed in coordination with any third parties. I am disappointed that the Chair of the Committee has not responded to my request for another hearing on this important nomination.” ■

With the asterisked caveat that the items are "subject to change," a vote on the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the open Democratic seat on the FCC has been slotted.

The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled an executive session for Wednesday, February 2, and among Sohn is among a 14 nominations scheduled to get a vote. Among the other nominees are Alvaro Bedoya for the open Democratic seat on the Federal Trade Commission and four members of the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kathy Im, Thomas Rothman, Elizabeth Sembler, and Laura Ross.

Also: Nets Settle with Locast for Fraction of Court Fine

But the Sohn nomination is the highest profile agenda item given the pushback from Republicans and the call by Commerce ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) for a second nomination hearing before a vote, which looks like it is not happening.

Commerce chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) had signaled she wanted to firm up a vote by this week.

The Committee vote would be a big step forward, but Sen. Thom Tillis has threatened to put a hold on her nomination before a full Senate vote. 

Sohn this week got endorsements from the Communications Workers of America and the National Urban League. ■