President Obama Should Fire His FCC Chairman

[Commentary] President Barack Obama made an important promise when he first ran for president. “The Internet is perhaps the most important network in history, and we have to keep it that way,” he said in 2007.

As a senator, he had similarly called for a “neutral platform” uncontrolled by “some corporate media middleman” like Verizon or Comcast. Sen Obama, in other words, was committed to preserving network neutrality -- the notion that Internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have to provide fair and neutral access to all websites and applications; they can’t make small websites slow to load and give “fast lanes” to monopolies and large companies who pay extra for special treatment.

But the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler, proposed a network neutrality rule that would authorize those pay-to-play fast lanes.

The President (and everyone else) seems to be overlooking one power he does have: the authority to remove FCC Chairman Wheeler from the chairmanship, promoting another commissioner to that spot and leaving Chairman Wheeler as one of the other four commissioners. In particular, both commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel, the two other Democrats on the five-person board, spoke out eloquently in official statements, criticizing Chairman Wheeler’s proposal for authorizing fast lanes and being a “network neutrality” rule in name only.

Either Commissioner Clyburn or Commissioner Rosenworcel could take over the agency, scrap Chairman Wheeler’s plan in favor of an alternative and move quickly to ensure an open Internet, thereby fulfilling the cornerstone of the Obama campaign’s tech agenda after the four-month comment period. While firing Chairman Wheeler as chairman would be an unusual move, there are at least four solid reasons the president should do it.

First, he has every right to do it. The Communications Act of 1934, the legislation that created the FCC, makes clear in Section 4(a) that the president has the power to “designate as chairman” one of the five commissioners.

Second, it’s not just that President Obama can demote Chairman Wheeler -- he also should.

Third, Wheeler’s network neutrality rule is truly bad for business, leaving small or unconnected companies with few options if Internet providers discriminate against them.

Fourth, the other two Democratic commissioners, either of whom could potentially replace Chairman Wheeler, not only seem committed to network neutrality and the rest of the Obama tech agenda, but also have the courage and competence to follow through.

[Teachout is fellow at the New America Foundation and associate law professor at Fordham Law School]