FCC Nominee Gigi Sohn Gets Pushback from Some Former Hill Democrats

Some former Democratic members of Congress have joined what is increasingly a concerted effort to block the nomination of Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow & Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society], 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. 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.