GOP Very Excited To Be Handed An FCC Voting Majority By Joe Biden

[LiberalArkie]

Consumer groups have grown all-too-politely annoyed at the Biden administration's failure to pick a third Democratic Commissioner and permanent FCC boss nearly eight months into his term. After the rushed Trump appointment of unqualified Trump ally Nathan Simington to the agency (as part of that dumb and now deceased plan to have the FCC regulate social media), the agency now sits gridlocked at 2-2 commissioners under interim FCC head Jessica Rosenworcel.

While the FCC can still putter along tackling its usual work on spectrum and device management, the gridlock means it can't do much of anything controversial, like reversing Trump-era attacks on basic telecom consumer protections, media consolidation rules, or the FCC's authority to hold telecom giants accountable for much of, well, anything. If you're a telecom giant like AT&T or Comcast, that's the gift that just keeps on giving.

More interesting perhaps is the fact that interim FCC boss Jessica Rosenworcel, whose term expires at the end of the year, hasn't had her term renewed either. That means there's an increasingly real chance the GOP enjoys a 2-1 voting majority at Biden's FCC in the new year:

"Biden’s delay is historic: No previous president has waited this long to name a chair of the five-member body. The closest parallels are Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon, who waited until mid-September to name their agency chiefs. But Biden has blown past that deadline, alarming Capitol Hill Democrats who have few legislative days remaining this year for confirming any nominees the president might offer."

By the time a permanent FCC boss is appointed and confirmed, it's likely a full year and a half of policy making time will have been wasted. That's a punch in the face to those who were looking for a Biden FCC to do popular things like restore net neutrality, meaningfully stand up to telecom mono/duopolies, or restore bipartisan media consolidation rules stripped away under Trump. It's also a weird contrast to the Biden administration's treatment of the FTC, which has been aggressively stocked with popular choices among folks looking for meaningful reform.

Snip

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211014/08532047746/gop-very-excited-to-be-handed-fcc-voting-majority-joe-biden.shtml

[lagomorph777]

1. Yikes. So many holes to plug in the dike.

[empedocles]

3. yep

[Budi]

2. CONT.. As for Rosenworcel

Politico, with some uncharacteristic nuance and accuracy, correctly does point out there's some hesitation about appointing current interim FCC boss Rosenworcel permanent boss because she's historically been an unreliable vote on major consumer advocacy issues.
Like that time she killed an FCC attempt to bring competition to cable boxes because the cable industry (falsely) claimed it would kill copyright:

"Rosenworcel has alienated some Democrats in the past. During the Obama years, she proved a fickle deciding vote on the FCC’s Democratic majority, and progressives blamed her for spiking an attempted overhaul of the cable set-top box marketplace. Democratic Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon even briefly blocked her renomination in late 2016 over their ire."

..More

[PortTack]

4. Many of Biden's appointments are being held up by the RWNJs!!

[Celerity]

5. Is this the case here?

[Lonestarblue]

6. Republicans have been refusing to show up for committee hearings.

WaPo had an article yesterday about their refusal to allow a vote on a Muslim nominee, very qualified but the wrong religion evidently. Democrats need to kill the filibuster and change many of the rules in the Senate. Hundreds of administration jobs are going unfilled because the minority party is bolding confirmations hostage to prevent the administration from undoing all the damage that Trump caused. I know these rules allow Democrats to block nominees when they are in the minority, but at some point work needs to get done by any administration.

The Senate also needs to seriously decrease the number of appointments requiring Senate confirmation. Our national security and foreign service are seriously depleted because Ted Cruz is holding all of those nominees hostage because Biden refused to sanction Russia over their pipeline to Germany. Perhaps Biden should just appoint acting staff everywhere as Trump did.