Can party affiliations predict the outcome of Mozilla v. FCC?

Some may be tempted to predict judicial outcomes by looking at the party of the judges and the President who nominated them. The panel scheduled to hear Mozilla v. Federal Communications Commission in the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit features judges who have both ruled for and against administrative agencies. The panel includes Senior Circuit Judge Stephen Williams (appointed by President Reagan) who issued a blistering 68-page dissent against the FCC’s Open Internet Order in 2015. While the court upheld the order, the FCC vacated it in 2017 and issued the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which is now being challenged in the court. The two other judges are Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins, both appointed by President Obama. A cursory review of some of the recent opinions of the judges suggests that conventional interpretations of administrative law are more likely to take precedence than political preferences. In such cases, judges typically determine whether an agency followed the proper procedure and whether interpretations are reasonable per the statute.