Senate Commerce Republicans Eye 2nd Bedoya Hearing Ahead of Sohn Sequel

Senate Commerce Committee Republicans told us they’re interested in pursuing a follow-up confirmation hearing with Democratic FTC nominee Alvaro Bedoya given their hopes for the outcome of a Wednesday panel with FCC nominee Gigi Sohn that will serve as her de facto second confirmation hearing. Senate Commerce postponed planned votes last week on Bedoya and Sohn, in part citing the extended absence of Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., while he recovers from a stroke (see 2202010070).

Sohn’s additional appearance before Senate Commerce is expected to largely focus on her commitment to temporarily recuse herself from some FCC proceedings involving retransmission consent and broadcast copyright matters and her role as a board member for Locast operator Sports Fans Coalition (see 2202020069). Senate Commerce ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said he plans to largely focus on Sohn’s recusals. He spearheaded the push for another Sohn hearing (see 2201180064).

"I think [the hearing] will pretty much track the press reports" about the hearing plan and "questions will surround" Sohn's recusals "and the circumstances surrounding" SFC's agreement with broadcasters to reduce the Locast settlement amount from the original $32 million to $700,000 of the shuttered rebroadcaster’s remaining cash and liquidation of its used servers (see 2201260056), Wicker told us. "Did the parties know they were striking a settlement agreement for a very small sum with someone who would soon have regulatory over them?" The partly virtual hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell.

Republicans will “probably” want to bring Bedoya back for another confirmation hearing, but it hasn't been formally requested, Wicker said. All 14 committee Republicans voted against Bedoya in December amid concerns about the nominee's Twitter activity linking the Trump administration to white supremacy (see 2112010043). “I’m hopeful we’ll see” another hearing on Bedoya given Republicans’ concerns about his nomination, said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

“Right now, we’re focused on Sohn, given all the new stuff that’s come out” about her recusals and the Locast settlement, said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. “Even Democrats are starting to have concerns about her truthfulness in her last hearing and these conflicts that come up. I started raising these conflicts” during Sohn’s December confirmation hearing. “We’re taking it [one nominee] at a time, but this is a really important position, and I think she’s thoroughly unqualified,” Sullivan said.

Senate Communications ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., told us he expects Sohn’s recusals will get the lion’s share of attention Wednesday, but “I don’t know if I will get into” that matter. He instead intends to “drill down a little bit on … what she wants to do in the area of reinstituting” the FCC’s rescinded 2015 net neutrality rules and reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II service.

Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., doesn’t expect the hearing to damage Sohn’s confirmation prospects, telling us she personally still backs the nominee and believes it won’t damage her standing with other Democrats either. “It’s a good opportunity to make clear they understood what happened with the recusal,” Cantwell said. “We’re still looking” at what questions she will pose to Sohn but expects they will almost certainly deal with the recusals.

NAB repeated its support for Sohn’s additional recusals, which it sought in November over the nominee’s Locast ties (see 2111290060). Sohn’s “recusal agreement resolves the concerns NAB raised regarding her nomination” and NAB appreciates her “willingness to seriously consider our issues regarding retransmission consent and broadcast copyright, and to address those concerns in her recusal,” said President Curtis LeGeyt in a Tuesday statement. A broadcasting official emphasized the industry hadn’t sought Sohn’s recusal on “additional issues on which she has a long history of advocacy” but instead focused on “her leadership of an enterprise ruled to have violated federal law.”

Broadcast advocate Preston Padden again backed Sohn in a Monday letter to Cantwell and Wicker. “I am a copyright hardliner who agrees with the plaintiffs in the Locast case,” Padden wrote the Commerce leaders. “But these are legitimate questions of copyright law about which reasonable people can, and do, disagree.” Padden said he also opposes the return of the FCC’s 2015 net neutrality rules, but “a Democrat FCC majority is almost certain to reimpose those rules regardless of the name of the third Democrat Commissioner. Therefore, the issue of Net Neutrality is not relevant to” Sohn’s confirmation. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, National Urban League and UnidosUS also backed Sohn Monday.