FCC Nominee Gomez Likely Faces Early September Senate Confirmation After Cloture Filing

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., filed cloture Thursday on Democratic FCC nominee Anna Gomez, teeing up likely floor votes leading to her confirmation during the first full week of September. That means movement on Gomez and the resulting shift to a 3-2 Democratic FCC majority will be slower than her supporters wanted but provides a clear timeline for the changeover to take place, officials and observers told us. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and others filed a cloture petition on Gomez earlier this month in hopes Schumer would hold floor votes on the nominee before Congress left for the month-plus August recess (see 2307200071).

Schumer told reporters Thursday he was filing cloture on Gomez and a handful of other high-profile Biden administration nominees “tonight for immediate votes … when we return” the week after Labor Day. A vote to invoke cloture on Gomez won’t happen until at least Sept. 6 because the Senate is only scheduled to vote Sept. 5 on cloture for President Joe Biden’s nomination of Federal Reserve Board member Philip Jefferson to be the body’s vice chairman.

The move likely thwarts Senate Republicans’ proposal to pair Gomez with GOP FTC nominees Andrew Ferguson and Melissa Holyoak (see 2307110048), lobbyists said. Schumer didn’t file Thursday for cloture on renominated FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks, which lobbyists said likely means leadership will try to move on the pair via unanimous consent. Starks’ term technically ended June 30, 2022, and he will have to leave the FCC by Jan. 3 without reconfirmation. Carr’s term ended a month ago, and he will have to leave the commission by Jan. 3, 2025, without reapproval.

“I think” Schumer will bring Gomez “up for one of the first votes when we come back” in September, Cantwell told us Thursday, before the majority leader announced he was filing cloture on the FCC nominee. “I haven’t talked to him directly” about what his plans are for moving on Carr, Gomez or Starks, she said. Cantwell continued to discount Republicans’ push to pair Gomez or Starks with the Republican FTC nominees.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., said he was “surprised” Schumer didn’t try to use floor time to confirm Gomez before the recess since the FCC remains in a 2-2 tie more than two years into Biden’s term. “There was overwhelming support” that led Senate Commerce to advance her, Carr, Starks and FCC inspector general nominee Fara Damelin in mid-July (see 2307120073), Lujan said. Commerce technically cleared Gomez by voice, but nine Republicans asked the panel to record them as no votes. “Now we are going into August without a full operating body” at the commission, which is “going to slow them down” even further, Lujan said: “I certainly hope that commitments that were made to get this voted on” before the recess “will be upheld in September.”

Communications ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., saw at least some hope before Schumer filed cloture on Gomez that Democrats would be willing to pair FCC and FTC nominees “when we get back” in September. He believes they were cool to the proposal this month because Senate Commerce action on the FTC picks was unlikely before September and they wanted swifter action than that on at least Gomez. “We’ll see” what the state of play is by that time, said Thune, who’s also the chamber’s minority whip. Lobbyists believe a Carr-Starks UC pairing is more likely than trying to move them in tandem with the FTC nominees because without Gomez in the mix the two FCC picks would achieve the requisite partisan balance.

Schumer and other Senate Democratic leaders “tried to do what they could” to expedite Gomez and the other FCC nominees in recent weeks, but “we don’t have to grade them on their intent, we can grade them on the results,” said Free Press Vice President-Policy Matt Wood. Delaying Gomez’s confirmation until September isn’t necessarily “categorically different” from moving her in July since the only FCC meeting in between happens this week, but it makes shorter “what’s already a shortened calendar” for a full commission to act on policy priorities like a shift to a net neutrality order preferred by Democrats.

Senate action on Gomez before the recess was “definitely preferable,” but if Schumer is committed to holding a vote on her the first week the chamber returns “I hope senators will feel the urgency to get this done quickly,” said Demand Progress Communications Director Mark Stanley. The effect of further delay is “not just about” the FCC’s August meeting but how it will “impact the commission’s actions into the fall,” including what items Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel proposes for the Sept. 21 gathering.