Name: Republicans play FCC hardball to jam Biden’s tech ambitions
Brand: politico.com
SKU: politico-com-242
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Republicans play FCC hardball to jam Biden’s tech ambitions

preview

“They’re breaking the norms," Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said before GOP senators confirmed Trump nominee Nathan Simington in the 2020 session's waning days.Spokespeople for Senate Commerce Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who is expected to oversee President-elect Joe Biden’s FCC if Republicans retain control of the chamber, declined to comment on his plans for future Democratic nominees. | Michael Reynolds/Pool via APSenate Republicans approved President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday — making a late-game, lame-duck attempt to stymie President-elect Joe Biden’s influence over a broad swath of tech policy.The 49-46 confirmation vote for Nathan Simington, less than a week after the Commerce Committee approved him along party lines, means the FCC will have a 2-2 Democratic-Republican split when Biden takes office in January. A year from now, that could turn into a 2-1 GOP advantage if Republicans maintain control of the Senate and refuse to confirm any of Biden’s nominees to the agency.At the very least, Republicans will have leverage over Biden’s future selections for the FCC — and with it, the ability to frustrate Democratic priorities on issues such as net neutrality, broadband subsidies for families of stuck-at-home students and rules on media ownership — while scrambling the dynamics on Capitol Hill.“It resets the game,” contended Nathan Leamer, a vice president at the Republican strategy firm Targeted Victory and former adviser to outgoing FCC Chair Ajit Pai. “It really does open up the entire table for potential deals and opportunities.”Leamer noted that Pai, a Republican who plans to step down on Inauguration Day, inherited a GOP majority when he took over as chair in 2017, boosting his ability to roll back Obama-era regulations. In contrast, Biden’s team “will be starting from behind.”But the implications could stretch through all of Biden’s term. If they play hardball, Republicans could prevent Biden from ever securing the partisan majority that presidents typically achieve on the five-person commission. Biden can still designate one of the agency’s two Democrats as chair in January, but that person would have trouble advancing any ambitious agenda.Democrats have criticized Simington as unqualified and unduly beholden to Trump, citing his work as a Commerce Department adviser working on tech and telecom policy. They call the Senate’s rush to confirm him just another example of obstructionism from Republicans who have largely refused to even acknowledge Biden’s victory.“The FCC will be gridlocked, which means it will fail to protect consumers,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Monday during a rally of Democrats and liberal activists against Simington. “They’re breaking the norms.”Senate Republicans are embracing a “new world of total war,” Tuesday about the FCC fight. Feld said a Democratic FCC chair could play hardball in return, by “effectively shut[ting] down the agency until Republicans approve a third Democrat” or perhaps ceasing to review companies’ merger proposals.Why this nomination is unusual: Simington has taken an unorthodox path to the FCC seat now held by Republican Mike O’Rielly, whose term expired last year.Trump originally nominated O’Rielly for a new term. But Trump rescinded that in August after the FCC veteran commissioner expressed skepticism about the White House’s push to narrow liability protections for online companies — as he prepares to leave the White House.In September, Trump nominated Simington, who was largely unknown among Hill Republicans. , despite skepticism from Democrats and some Republicans about his qualifications.At the Commerce Department, Simington has played significant roles in advancing Trump’s tech liability proposal — and even urged Fox News to have prime-time host Laura Ingraham amp up pressure on the FCC to assist it, according to . Simington told senators his actions amounted to “limited advocacy” for the proposal, but he has declined to recuse from any FCC votes on the issue.Some Republicans, like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, have celebrated Simington asBiden’s unforgiving math: Despite the heavy White House push, many tech and telecom industry observers had doubted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would devote hours of precious lame-duck floor time to an FCC nominee, especially with big topics like government funding, pandemic relief and the annual defense bill still in play.Historically, the Senate advanced FCC nominees by voice votes in a bipartisan bundle. If the Senate had failed to act on Simington’s nomination, Biden could have proposed replacements for both Pai and O’Rielly early next year — and by tradition, would have probably deferred to Republicans’ preference for one of the seats.Instead, Biden is facing some hostile arithmetic, especially if Republicans hold the Senate after January’s Georgia runoff elections.With Simington confirmed, the next FCC seat to come open is that of Jessica Rosenworcel, the agency’s senior Democrat and a contender to become at least acting chair in January. Her five-year term has expired, and by law she must leave the FCC at the end of 2021 unless Biden and the Senate grant her a new one.That means that to advance his FCC agenda, Biden will need to nominate and clear two Democrats through the Senate next year. And with no Republican seats up for grabs, McConnell has an ideal chance to practice some of his well-known political hardball.What Republicans could demand: For Democrats, the stakes include not only reviving net neutrality but also ambitions to go big on broadband spending, particularly given the ongoing pandemic. Rosenworcel wants the agency to use its broadband subsidies more flexibly to help the families of students stuck at home, addressing the economic imbalance that she calls the digital “homework gap.”Although a Democratic chief could advance certain bureaucratic changes unilaterally, big agenda items would probably require obtaining majority support among the other commissioners.But the GOP could have a lot of say on a range of Biden’s decisions on the FCC. For example, a Republican Senate “would have the leverage to advise the president toward a centrist chair,” Phil Kerpen, who heads conservative advocacy group American Commitment, told POLITICO.Some Republicans also see a chance to use the FCC’s upcoming deadlock as a window to force legislative negotiations on topics like net neutrality. Leamer, the former Pai adviser, named 5G security and privacy as other areas for the parties to negotiate.Leamer dismissed Democrats’ concerns about the breaking of norms, accusing them of politicizing the nomination of his former boss. In 2017, Democrats forced a roll-call vote to reconfirm Pai amid sparring on net neutrality, although four Democrats ultimately backed Pai in the 52-48 vote.The FCC’s third Republican, Brendan Carr, used unusually partisan language in urging senators to confirm Simington. Last week, Carr suggested on Fox Business that confirmation was vital “to help forestall what really would be billions of dollars’ worth of economic damage that I think a Democrat FCC would look to jam through from Day 1, in January or February” — an apparent reference to net neutrality rules. (Democrats dispute such economic doomsaying.)Democrats call Simington ‘deeply dangerous': Democrats like Blumenthal unsuccessfully urged the Senate to wait until next year — citing FCC norms, the election results and what they called Simington’s glaring shortcomings. Among other complaints, they accused him of not being forthright about his efforts to aid Trump’s social media crackdown.“Nathan Simington is a deeply dangerous nominee. … He is conflicted, unprepared and unqualified,” Blumenthal said during Monday’s rally, asserting that Simington’s primary qualification “is he is more than happy to do the president’s bidding.”Liberal-leaning advocacy groups including Public Knowledge, MediaJustice and Fight for the Future joined Blumenthal and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in deriding the nominee. The United Church of Christ’s Cheryl Leanza invoked fears about how gridlock on the commission would affect low-income Americans as well as the protection of civil rights and liberties.“We are going to pull out all the stops to oppose this particularly flawed selection, which is really about Donald Trump carrying out a grudge,” Wyden said.Also weighing in: Wireless and cable industry incumbents wary of FCC regulations pressed the Senate to install Simington, as did conservative advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform. “We encourage the full Senate to move quickly to confirm him so he can begin contributing his talents,” said Charter Communications, the nation’s second-biggest cable operator, before the vote.Spokespeople for Senate Commerce Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who is expected to oversee Biden’s FCC if Republicans retain control of the chamber, declined to comment on his plans for future Democratic nominees.“I don’t think anyone knows the new normal post-Trump, so expiration of the Democrats’ terms does seem dicey,” said Paul Gallant, an analyst for the firm Cowen. “But I’d be surprised if they’re not reconfirmed with a Democratic FCC majority in 2021. The commission is just part of the nominations chessboard with Biden and McConnell.”

“They’re breaking the norms," Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said before GOP senators confirmed Trump nominee Nathan Simington in the 2020 session's waning days.Spokespeople for Senate Commerce Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who is expected to oversee President-elect Joe Biden’s FCC if Republicans retain control of the chamber, declined to comment on his plans for future Democratic nominees. | Michael Reynolds/Pool via APSenate Republicans approved President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday — making a late-game, lame-duck attempt to stymie...

public

John Hendel

Politico, known originally as The Politico, is an American political journalism company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and internationally. It distributes content through its website, television, printed newspapers, radio, and podcasts. Its coverage in Washington, D.C. includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, the media, and the presidency.

Republicans play FCC hardball to jam Biden’s tech ambitions

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS