Biden’s walking into 2024 without a functional FCC.
because the FCC has yet to fix the maps that would give us an accurate number. For the sake of argument, let’s use the smaller figure. That is still 14 million people, some with kids who can’t finish their homework at the kitchen table or in their bedrooms. That’s still 14 million people who can’t stream whatever everyone is watching on Netflix or Hulu. It’s 14 million people who can’t participate in the online world a majority of the country takes for granted.
Now in 2023, Biden’s term is half over. His signature infrastructure bill, meant to stimulate affordable internet access across the country, is poised toat the expense of competitive city-run initiatives. His FCC can’t take stronger action to fix the problem because he can’t get a third Democratic commissioner to push his agenda through. This is unprecedented. Never, under any administration, has the FCC been without a working majority for this long.
It took eight months for Biden to even nominate Sohn, his first pick, for the seat. For the following year and a half, the Senate’s focus wasn’t pushing her through to close this gap in broadband accessibility. Instead, Republicans and dark money groups did everything they could to stop her confirmation. Everything from her tweets to her board positions was twisted into chum for the culture wars. The worst part is that Democratic lawmakers did very little to combat these attacks.
The only people who benefit from a non-functional FCC are telecoms and their executives, and it’s maddening to see this get lost in all of these hearings. Most annoyingly, millions of people in these GOP senators’ states still lack access. Take Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas, for example — more than 2.8 million Texas households andSohn’s opponents argued she was too radical and threatened free speech and that this was a greater problem than poor broadband expansion.
Since Gomez’s bureaucratic background left little room for Republicans to attack her in the same way as Sohn, she’s got a seemingly better chance of getting confirmed. But time is running out as the 2024 election season draws nearer, and much of the damage has been done. The last few years have shown just how far FCC opponents will go to kneecap the agency — and how little its supporters are doing to stop them.
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