How a delay in Gigi Sohn’s FCC confirmations allowed Republicans to build a new case against her

It remains an open question as to when the Senate Commerce Committee will schedule a vote on Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society], the long-time public interest advocate and net neutrality supporter picked by President Joe Biden to fill out the Federal Communications Commission. There have been plenty of attempts from her detractors to try and derail her nomination; Republicans have tried to paint her as an extreme partisan—a characterization she vigorously defended herself against during her confirmation hearing—with the clear goal of mucking up the confirmation process. While Republicans in Congress have gone after Sohn, she’s received support from numerous right-wing TV networks like Newsmax and OAN. The latest attempt to derail the process comes from Sen Roger Wicker (R-MS), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee who has blocked numerous attempts to force a vote on net neutrality bills. But the timing of Wicker’s concern over Sohn’s ethics—a vote on her confirmation has been expected to happen in the next few weeks—has been lambasted by internet rights organizations as “dubious” and a “cynical” ploy to keep the FCC in a 2-2 partisan deadlock, thus stopping it from moving forward on net neutrality. Besides re-nominating Sohn in January 2022, Biden hasn’t addressed the slow movement of her confirmation process or the Republican pushback against her nomination.