Senate FCC Confirmation Hearing Timeline Still Fluid; Sohn Lambasts Media

Senate Commerce Committee leaders are continuing to push for a June confirmation hearing on FCC nominee Anna Gomez and renominated Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks (see 2306010075) but haven't settled on a date, lawmakers and lobbyists told us. Ex-nominee Gigi Sohn, meanwhile, directed her ire during a Tuesday Media and Democracy Project event at all levels of news media for not effectively covering her year-plus stalled confirmation process, saying she hopes Gomez and other future FCC candidates don't get the same treatment. Sohn asked President Joe Biden to withdraw her from consideration in March amid continued resistance from a handful of Democrats and uniform GOP opposition (see 2303070082).

"We'll schedule it as soon as we can," but it still depends on Senate Commerce getting all of the required nominations paperwork from the White House, Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Wednesday in a brief interview. "We didn't have it as of last Friday," and she wasn't sure the administration had delivered it either Tuesday or Wednesday. Lobbyists expected Commerce to set June 14 as the hearing date, but that now appears unlikely. "I'd like to get" all three FCC candidates through the confirmation process "before" the August recess begins, Cantwell said. She remains intent on moving the nominees together to ease the confirmation process, but that means finding a hearing date that works for all three of them, lobbyists said.

The Revolving Door Project and International Center for Law and Economics are already suggesting Senate Commerce members press Gomez to take a stand on policy issues the FCC may tackle. "Gomez’s record outside of" past roles at the FCC, NTIA and other federal agencies "raises red flags about" her "commitment to restoring net neutrality," Revolving Door said Tuesday: "In her three decades working in telecommunications policy, Gomez has never once publicly expressed her views on net neutrality or" reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service.

Senate Commerce "must do its job and get answers from Gomez on the single most important issue governing the future of the internet," Revolving Door said. Each Commerce Democratic caucus member except Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., "previously expressed support for net neutrality. Surely at least one must be willing to grill Gomez on the topic?" it said. ICLE Senior Scholar Eric Fruits suggested the panel query Gomez on rate regulation. "Senators are sure to press Gomez for her thoughts on" net neutrality, "as they should, but it’s not the only matter deserving of scrutiny," he said: "It’s appropriate for policymakers to focus on improving internet affordability," but "rate regulation is likely the worst way to achieve the goal of greater broadband access and affordability. The public deserves to hear from the nominee how she would approach such issues."

Media and Democracy leaders ended the Sohn event Tuesday by urging participants to call Cantwell and other senators to press the chamber to advance Gomez and the other FCC nominees without delay, citing the more than two years since the commission shifted to a 2-2 partisan tie.

“The unconfirmed is not a small club,” but “I’ve done pretty well” compared to some other Biden administration nominees, Sohn said: “I think about what was thrown at me,” but former Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms director nominee David Chapman “had protestors outside his house with guns.” Some members of Congress, conservative media companies and groups that engage in bad-faith opposition campaigns against nominees “don’t care how it affects your life,” she said: “They don't care about the attacks. They don't care” that “some creepy QAnon guy came to my last hearing and just stared me down the whole time. And I was warned and told to keep my doors locked and alert my neighbors. It's really incredible.”

Sohn focused her media criticism primarily on News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch due to a wealth of negative coverage her confirmation process got from media affiliated with the executive, including Fox News and the New York Post. Sohn cited reports that “I told friends that the only reason I was sticking with the nomination was because the White House promised to make me” FCC chair, which was false. “I'm sure that was sent to everybody on” Senate Commerce and “there’s nothing you can do about it” because White House nominees “cannot say anything to the press,” she said.

Murdoch “cozies up” to “right-wing legislators and heads of state” because he “wants to shape the narrative,” Sohn said. “When it came to my nomination, he didn’t even hide it” and “it worked.” Now-Senate Commerce ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was “actually nice to me” during Sohn’s first confirmation hearing in December 2021 (see 2112010043), but when she appeared before the panel again in February 2022 “he was down my throat,” she said: “And I'm told” Murdoch “picked up the phone” after the 2021 hearing and said ‘what are you doing?’” to Cruz. “Every single Republican down the dais wanted to ask me nasty questions” during the 2022 hearing (see 2202090070) “just so they could get on Fox,” Sohn said.

Sohn also harangued “the trade press,” saying they “printed full-out lies” about her throughout the confirmation process. Axios and other similar publications fed “the daily drip, drip, drip of bad news,” in part by quoting sources anonymously or on background who would spout disinformation, she said: “You have to remember” that many subscribers of trade publications are companies that tried “to sink me” and “law firms that represent those companies.” She praised some coverage from the New York Times, Washington Post and other major “mainstream media” outlets but criticized them for only writing about the situation when Biden nominated her and when she withdrew.

Sohn said if the Senate had confirmed her she “had planned” to “make media and democracy a big part of” her FCC agenda to “get people to focus on what can be done to open up broadcasting and cable” again. “I'd like to see the philanthropic community maybe go back to the past where they were more engaged” on media issues, she said. “You have to find some champions on” Capitol Hill to bring more visibility to those issues and “the obvious candidates” are on the House and Senate Commerce panels. Sohn was “surprised and distressed” by the outcome of a May Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing on a potential USF revamp (see 2305110066) that showed Senate Commerce Democrats except for Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts are “too low key.” Markey’s “a great person, but he can't be … the champion of everybody,” she said: Cantwell “says she cares deeply about media consolidation,” but she “needs to speak out more.”