Senate Confirms New FCC Commissioner, Ending 2+ Years of Deadlock

pcmag.com:

Almost 1,000 days after he took office, President Biden has filled a spot on the Federal Communications Commission that’s stood vacant since Inauguration Day.

In a mostly party-line 55-to-43 vote on Thursday, the Senate confirmed Anna Gomez, a veteran telecom lawyer whose resume includes service at the State Department, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and the FCC itself, as well as a years-ago stint at Sprint Nextel.

That confirmation ends a 2-2 deadlock between Republican and Democratic nominees that’s kept the FCC idling on many issues. It also comes roughly 3.5 months after Biden nominated Gomez following the March withdrawal of Gigi Sohn–whom Biden had nominated in October 2021 when he also picked current commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel to serve as chair.

Back then, this spot on the five-member commission had already been vacant for more than 10 months after Ajit Pai’s resignation after a four-year term as chair. Under his leadership, a Republican majority rolled back many regulatory initiatives enacted by the FCC’s previous Democratic majority, in particular the net-neutrality rules the FCC had adopted in 2015.  

But while the Senate confirmed Rosenworcel within weeks, Sohn had no such luck. The longtime consumer advocate, who would have been the first openly gay FCC commissioner, found herself the target of bizarre and baseless character attacks (for instance, the notion that her being a board member at the longstanding digital-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation meant she opposed police funding) that went largely unanswered by the White House.

“With each delay, these lobbyists and staffers had more time to dig up dirt, twist dirt, and get editorials planted,” Sohn told The