K. Holt@krisholtMarch 3rd, 2022In this post: alvaro bedoya, information, fcc, gear, gigi sohn, plan, federal communications fee, federal trade commissionPOOL New / reuters
The Senate will vote on the nominations of Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission and Alvaro Bedoya to the Federal Trade Commission, respectively. The Senate Commerce Committee moved ahead their nominations, even though the 14-14 tie suggests there will be an additional procedural step for every in advance of a complete Senate vote.
Democrats and Republicans just about every have 50 senators nevertheless Vice President Kamala Harris has a tie-breaker vote. Really should Sohn and Bedoya be confirmed as commissioners, the Democrats will hold a the greater part in both of those the FCC and FTC.
The committee delayed a vote on the nominations following Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) suffered a stroke in January. Luján, whose vote was required for Democrats to transfer the nominations forward, has given that returned to do the job.
President Biden nominated Sohn at the identical time he place forward Jessica Rosenworcel as FCC chair in October. Even though the Senate authorised Rosenworcel’s long lasting appointment in December, Sohn’s appointment has taken lengthier. As these types of, the FCC has been deadlocked at 2-2 along get together strains, leaving Rosenworcel unable to, between other matters, advance a net neutrality plan.
Opposition to the nomination of Sohn, a longtime advocate for net neutrality, has appear from a range of quarters, which includes the Administrators Guild of The usa. The group urged senators to vote down Sohn’s nomination thanks to her “hostility to copyright legislation.” Sohn was formerly on the board of Locast, a defunct provider that rebroadcast over-the-air Tv broadcast signals by means of the internet. She mentioned she’d recuse herself from issues regarding retransmission consent and broadcast copyright.
In affirmation hearings, Republicans portrayed Sohn as an excessive partisan. She hit again at those people assertions, arguing that she had been issue to “unrelenting, unfair and outright wrong criticism and scrutiny.”
The FTC, in the meantime, is in the system of reviewing some major proposed mergers. According to stories, all those include things like Amazon’s prepared buyout of MGM and Microsoft’s bid to get Activision Blizzard. Reviews counsel the FTC is mulling an antitrust obstacle to block the Amazon-MGM offer, though it would need a majority vote to continue with a lawsuit.
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