Biden Tries Again: Picks Anna Gomez For Long-Empty FCC Spot

Broadband

from the round-and-round-we-go dept

By now we’ve talked at length about the hot mess that has been the Biden administration’s attempt to properly staff the FCC. After an inexplicable 8 month delay, the Biden administration picked popular consumer advocate Gigi Sohn for the spot. But a relentless, often homophobic, multi-year smear campaign by telecom/media giants and their GOP allies scuttled Sohn’s chances.

Sohn saw zero real support from her future colleagues at the FCC. Nor did the White House provide much in the way of messaging support as GOP-allied news outlets painted Sohn as an extremist caricature, falsely accusing her of hating cops, rural America, and free speech.

Ultimately Sohn’s nom was killed not just by a unified GOP, but by just three Democratic Senators who blocked her from reaching a simple Senate majority confirmation vote: Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Kelly (AZ), and Catherine Cortez Masto (NV). It was a prime example of how popular, outspoken reformers can’t survive a corrupt Congressional nomination process.

Now the Biden administration is back again, this time with an arguably “safer” choice: former Sprint-Nextel lobbyist and NTIA staffer Anna Gomez. Gomez has worked at both the FCC and at law firms representing companies before the FCC. She’s also generally well liked in the industry.

That said, her opinions on key policy issues facing the FCC are a bit of a black box. She’s made no public comments on whether she’d support restoring media consolidation limits stripped away by the Trump FCC. Or reclassifying ISPs under Title II and restoring net neutrality. Consumer advocates are hopeful that she will, but in conversations it’s clear they aren’t actually sure:

Advocates are particularly concerned that there’s nothing in Gomez’s record to state how she would view classifying broadband as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. This is commonly known as net neutrality, and in practice it would prevent ISPs from throttling customers or discriminating against any content by slowing down speeds. “I think she’s for Title II but I don’t know that she’s ever said that,” said Guice.

So while Gomez is well liked and generally respected, a reformer she isn’t. A lack of information on her actual positions will likely help her nomination process, giving industry little to attack her on. But as it stands, telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast sound relatively pleased with the choice, which is usually clear indication she won’t pose much of a threat to consolidated monopoly power:

Tom Reid, chief legal officer of Comcast, which owns CNBC parent company NBCUniversal, said in a statement that Gomez’s “deep knowledge across the breadth of issues before the FCC makes her exceptionally qualified to be a Commissioner.”

Jonathan Spalter, president and CEO of USTelecom, a trade group that represents broadband providers like AT&T and Verizon, congratulated Gomez in a statement.

“I have come to know Anna over the years in her roles as an advocate in the public and private sectors, and if confirmed, I look forward to working with her and a full five-member FCC on our shared objective to connect everyone everywhere to the power and promise of broadband,” Spalter said.

Granted what companies like AT&T and Comcast say is often very different from what they’ll do, and industry is highly incentivized to keep the FCC in a perpetual state of 2-2 Commissioner gridlock to negate even the remote chance it might try to reform a very broken sector.

Consumer groups, simply keen to have an FCC majority after two years of FCC gridlock, also support the choice. But after watching Sohn get demolished by a highly coordinated industry attack machine, they’re keenly aware that they need to present a unified front if they want the FCC to have a voting majority anytime in the next decade.

Sometimes, folks of the revolving door variety wind up surprising you, as when former cable and wireless lobbyist Tom Wheeler wound up implementing some of the most meaningful telecom reform efforts in a generation (already mindlessly stripped away by the Trump administration, but still). That said, Wheeler was at the end of his career and had nobody left to impress politically.

That said, I suspect Gomez is much in line with existing Democratic FCC staffers Rosenworcel and Starks: as in she’ll talk often and ambiguously about the “need to bridge the digital divide,” but may not have the political courage to meaningfully challenge (or as in Rosenworcel’s case even directly identify) the regional telecom monopolies actually responsible for it. A lawyer and politician that’s competent and administratively sound, but won’t be keen to rock the boat.

What the FCC desperately needs is a tough fighter and a public interest advocate keen on aggressively tackling media consolidation, telecom monopolization, and a myriad of major issues caused by broken markets and unchecked corporate power. Gomez may surprise, but at first glance she very much isn’t that. That kind of candidate, as we just saw with Sohn, simply can’t survive a corrupt Congress.

Competent but feckless has been the general thrust of federal telecom market and consumer protection for a long while, which is a major reason why the real fight on telecom issues has shifted increasingly to the state and local level, where municipalities are busy building brick and mortar alternatives to monopoly power. With the Supreme Court looking to lobotomize federal regulators further via the Chevron deference case, I’d expect that trend to continue, making agencies like the FCC increasingly irrelevant.

Filed Under: 5g, anna gomez, cable, dsl, fcc, gigi sohn, high speed internet, monopolies, telecom