The Senate Gets an 'F' in FCC for Failing to Confirm Public-Interest Advocate Gigi Sohn After a Year of Senseless Delays

It's been one year since President Biden nominated Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to the Federal Communications Commission. Since then, the FCC has remained deadlocked 2–2 as Sohn has faced an underhanded campaign by deep-pocketed phone, cable, and broadcast companies seeking to hamstring the agency that oversees their businesses. No other nominee in the FCC’s history has had to wait so long for a confirmation vote in the Senate. 

Free Press Action Internet Campaign Director Heather Franklin said: “The US Senate gets an ‘F’ in FCC. Gigi Sohn has been in limbo for a year now, preventing a deadlocked agency from passing crucial policies that would help people in the United States connect and communicate. This senseless delay is harming millions of people, especially working families trying to pay their rising monthly bills and those in Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and rural communities that the biggest phone and cable companies have long exploited and neglected. Broadcast, cable, and phone companies don’t want the FCC to hold them accountable to people, so they’ve launched a smear campaign against Sohn, repeatedly misrepresenting her record in the media and on Capitol Hill. Sohn has faced antisemitic, homophobic, and blatantly false attacks online and in right-wing media. For a year, Democratic leaders have dithered and delayed, leaving people in the United States without the safeguards they need to access an open and affordable internet."