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One of the more shameless dark-money campaigns in recent memory, bankrolled by incumbent telecom firms, prevented reformer Gigi Sohn’s confirmation to a seat on the Federal Communications Commission. Sohn withdrew from consideration in March, leaving the 2-2 partisan split on the FCC that has been in place since Joe Biden’s inauguration. Under chair Jessica Rosenworcel, there have been a few advances, but by and large the commission has been deadlocked, unable to move forward on controversial issues or impose much accountability on phone, cable, or internet providers.
Two months after Sohn’s withdrawal, a replacement nominee has yet to be named. While there is a clear front-runner, the White House has not moved with the urgency felt by public-interest groups, who see the opportunity to reverse the damage of the Trump years slipping away.
The next nominee is not likely to be a full-throated consumer advocate the way Sohn was, in part because of her 16-month ordeal of being hammered by corporate front groups. This sends a familiar message that only a technocrat who at best won’t make waves and at worst will do the industry’s bidding is acceptable. Even if there are viable options outside that range, the later it gets in the first term, the more exhaustion sets in as the deadlock continues.
“There’s a real risk of public-interest candidates being taken off the table,” said one advocate who asked not to be named because they are working on the nomination. “We want more Lina Khans, not people who were corporate lawyers for years.”
THE CONSENSUS FRONT-RUNNER FOR THE POSITION is Anna Gomez; the rumor was that her selection would be announced earlier this month, though it hasn’t happened yet. Gomez checks many boxes. She is Latina, and several outside groups have urged Biden to nominate a woman of color. Like Sohn, Gomez previously worked at the FCC, as deputy chief of the FCC’s international bureau and chief of its wireline bureau (the FCC term of art for landline phones). She has administrative leadership experience as acting director and later a top deputy of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which works on broadband and internet policy issues. She was in contention for the commissioner slot when Sohn was nominated, meaning she’s already vetted and ready to go. And she worked on the Senate Commerce Committee, where the nomination will be dealt with. Currently, Gomez is leading preparations at the State Department for the World Radiocommunication Conference, an event involving how nations divvy up radio spectrum that will be held in November.
“She has a wealth of experience,” said Greg Guice, director of government affairs for Public Knowledge, who worked with Gomez at the FCC. “She would be acceptable to all.”
However, Gomez has plenty in her background to interest industry. She was the vice president of government affairs (a nice term for lobbyist) at Sprint Nextel. She was an associate early in her career at corporate law firm Arnold & Porter, and more recently she spent several years as a partner at Wiley Rein, the biggest and most influential law firm that represents clients at the FCC. Gomez’s clients have not been revealed, but her Wiley bio states that they involve “domestic and international telecommunications, public safety communications, and unmanned aircraft systems.” Sources have told the Prospect that communication drones were the focus of much of her work.
The way Washington often works, the less you say about the issues you would face in your job, the more chance you have to get the job.
In addition, though Gomez worked on the Biden campaign and clearly allies with Democrats, she has no clear public record on several key issues facing the FCC. That includes congressionally mandated rules on digital discrimination, which would punish internet service providers (ISPs) for underinvestment in low-income communities. Other issues where the FCC has thus far been unable to act aggressively include broadcast ownership expansion and setting the broadband map, which determines where funding is directed. “With this work, it’s all in the details,” said Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press.
Advocates are particularly concerned that there’s nothing in Gomez’s record to state how she would view classifying broadband as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. This is commonly known as net neutrality, and in practice it would prevent ISPs from throttling customers or discriminating against any content by slowing down speeds. “I think she’s for Title II but I don’t know that she’s ever said that,” said Guice.
The way Washington often works, the less you say about the issues you would face in your job, the more chance you have to get the job. That could especially be true for this seat, where Sohn, whose views on net neutrality and many other issues are well known, was just shot down.
Despite her corporate law past and vagueness on issues, Gomez is seen as a better option than several other contenders. “The public-interest community will grudgingly accept Anna, they won’t go to the mat but will say, ‘Fine,’” said one observer. One reason for that is that telecom money spreads far and wide, including to Black and Hispanic advocacy groups, which intersects with the desire for diversity on the commission in ways favorable to industry.
Felix Sanchez, the co-founder of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, has been around Washington since the 1980s, and is seen as the choice of the broadcasters and ISPs. In March, Sanchez was nominated to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which could be viewed as stashing him away there instead of the FCC. Public-interest groups view that with some relief.
The national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Domingo Garcia, recently wrote to Biden endorsing Chris Luna, an 18-year executive at T-Mobile and MetroPCS. LULAC had previously made a joint endorsement of several candidates, including Gomez. LULAC did not return a request for comment.
Other names in the running are more puzzling. Susie Perez Quinn is the chief of staff of NASA and a longtime aide of former Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who serves as its administrator. There’s no sense that she’s actively seeking the position, though her name gets put on lists. Current FCC chief of staff Narda Jones has been mentioned, but she has said she isn’t interested.
April McClain-Delaney, the wife of former congressman, presidential candidate, and rich guy John Delaney (D-MD), is also part of the short list. She is the deputy administrator at NTIA, and previously worked at Common Sense Media, a D.C. nonprofit founded by the brother of Tom Steyer, another rich-guy presidential candidate. That means there’s a lot of campaign money out there in McClain-Delaney’s corner, though again she was described as something of a blank slate.
ONE CANDIDATE DOES HAVE SOMETHING RESEMBLING a Gigi Sohn profile: Joseph Wender, who currently directs the Capital Projects Fund at the Department of the Treasury, which after the American Rescue Plan found itself with $10 billion to give to states for broadband buildout. Wender previously was senior policy adviser to Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), where he led on telecom and infrastructure issues.
Markey has been a longtime champion of net neutrality. “Wender was the single most important staff-level driver of Title II in Congress,” said one public-interest source involved in the nomination. While in Markey’s office, he organized the Congressional Review Act resolution in 2018 that would have overturned the Trump FCC’s repeal of net neutrality, getting three Republicans to join all Democrats to pass the resolution in the Senate.
Wender, as a white male, will have difficulties making his way through the process, given the calls for diversity. But as far as someone who might be best for consumers of all races, with a commitment to internet equality, no ties to the incumbents who have resisted affordable broadband for everyone, and experience in the Senate that would be helpful for confirmation, Wender could fit the bill.
Unfortunately, someone who has stuck their head up at all on telecom issues isn’t a likely candidate now, after the ambush of Sohn. The Senate Commerce Committee, run by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) but stage-run by its ranking Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), saw fit to give Sohn three different nomination hearings, allowing maximum time for Republicans to pummel and distort her record, and for attack ads to take effect. At this point, the administration may be seeking a path of least resistance. And Gomez, a technocrat who knows the building and has the profile of a standard FCC pick, could serve that function.
In March, 63 public-interest and community organizations, including Demand Progress, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Free Press, Public Knowledge, Common Cause, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and more, urged President Biden to nominate someone with “a history of advocacy for the public interest and is free of industry conflicts of interest,” as well as someone with a “clear commitment” to supporting net neutrality and affordable broadband access.
The letter cited the consequences of delay on Senate confirmation, which has weakened the watchdog role of the FCC. The current 2-2 split has weakened the rules that have gone through, advocates say, while letting other issues slip through the cracks, like access to utility poles for the broadband buildout, or access to spectrum licenses that have been won and paid for by telecoms.
Rosenworcel, the current chair, has taken the lead on next-generation 5G Wi-Fi protocols, and consumer labeling for broadband that clearly display charges, fees, and connection speeds. The agency also adopted rules to prevent landlords from getting kickbacks to narrow tenant choices on cable and internet, and used an administrative technique to effectively block a hedge fund from buying 60 local TV stations.
But the bigger issues are much harder to get done at 2-2, and it makes it easier to avoid even taking a risk of bringing up issues that may be popular but are controversial to industry. The agency even lost the ability to conduct spectrum auctions for the first time since the 1990s. “The Federal Election Commission, by design, doesn’t have a majority, because politicians don’t want it to do anything,” said Aaron. “That’s the effect here.”
In other words, telecoms see delay as favorable to their interests, on par with getting a corporate lackey to serve. With two years already gone, advocates fear that the FCC risks becoming a back-burner issue, with the promise of a Democratic majority vanishing. A loud consumer advocate along the lines of Sohn might reverse that, pushing the agency to do more. But there are dimming options for that possibility.
