FCC Nominee Gigi Sohn Faces Republican Resistance

Senate Republicans are planning a strong fight against President Biden's nomination of consumer advocate Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to the Federal Communications Commission. "I will do everything in my power to convince colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject this extreme nominee," said Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Sohn has a longtime career in government policy, having co-founded consumer-advocacy group Public Knowledge in 2001. In 2013, then-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler chose Sohn to serve as a counselor, and the FCC proceeded to adopt Title II common-carrier and net neutrality regulations for Internet service providers—rules that were later overturned during the Trump administration. Since leaving the FCC, Sohn has continued to push for strict regulations to protect telecom consumers. Sohn's support of consumer protection regulations was obviously going to put her at odds with Senate Republicans, but conservatives are also claiming she'll use the FCC to censor them. Somewhat surprisingly, the argument that Sohn will censor conservatives relies partly on one instance in which she agreed with former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.