Policymakers

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) announced the full Democratic rosters for each of the six subcommittees in the 117th Congress, including the six subcommittee chairs and the full Committee vice chair, who were elected by the Democrats on the Committee. The six subcommittees and their chairs are:

Shortly after the election, it appeared that Republicans in the Senate hoped to gum up the Federal Communications Commission and potentially block Biden from filling it out. In early December, the Senate rammed through the nomination of Nathan Simington, a person handpicked by President Donald Trump to serve on the FCC whose selection 

Color of Change, a civil rights group, urged President-elect Joe Biden to choose Commissioner Geoffrey Starks to be the Federal Communications Commission's next chairman. Commissioner Starks is junior to fellow Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who took office in 2012 and is widely considered to be a leading candidate for the chair. She would be the first woman named FCC chair, other than a Mignon Clyburn who served as acting chairwoman in 2013. Commissioner Starks “has demonstrated and recently reaffirmed his commitment to digital equity,” Color Of Change President Rashad Robinson said.

The House Republican Steering Committee selected eight new members to serve on the House Commerce Committee:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai appointed members for the fourth two-year term of the Disability Advisory Committee (DAC). There will be 34 members and 4 ex officio members, a diverse mix of organizations representing individuals with disabilities, the communications and video programming industries, the public safety industry, trade associations, researchers, and other stakeholders.

The Federal Communications Commission heard reports from leaders of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, International Bureau, Office of Engineering and Technology, and Office of Economics and Analytics on their work over the last four years. The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau’s presentation summarized the accomplishments of its staff in contributing to the Commission’s efforts to make 5G deployment a reality.

It would certainly make sense for me to use today’s platform to detail all the ways that we have cleared out the Federal Communications Commission’s regulatory underbrush since I spoke to Free State one month before taking this position. But I’d like to go in a less obvious direction. Instead, I’d like to lay out my theory for good governance and how the reforms we’ve made since January 2017 have fundamentally transformed the agency’s operations for the better. Along the way, I’ve picked up a few lessons about what I believe to be the keys to effective governance.

For the bulk of his tenure, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has avoided wading into the relentless controversies that defined President Trump's presidency.

The Capitol began processing a massive shift in the balance of power as Democrats prepare to take unified control of Congress. That means these key Democrats are primed to take the gavels on the committees overseeing technology and telecommunications issues, ranging from data privacy to 5G to antitrust:

• Net Neutrality: A Democratic Federal Communications Commission will likely first move to reclassify broadband as a service under Title II of the Communications Act. That will allow it to restore rules requiring Internet service providers to treat all internet traffic equally, and take other actions to regulate broadband providers’ business practices amid the Covid-19 pandemic.