Radical FCC Nominee Faces Backlash

If you have been paying attention to some of the personnel this administration is attempting to shoehorn through the confirmation process, you may have noticed that a radical nominee for FCC commissioner is taking on water. Gigi Sohn, a lawyer who served as the right hand of former commissioner Wheeler is making headlines and not for the reasons she would hope. Sohn’s attacks on conservative media outlets and opposition to free speech drew the ire of Senate Republicans during her third hearing since originally being nominated. 

During her contentious hearing last week, Texas Senator Ted Cruz told the American people: “Ms. Sohn portrays herself as a defender of free speech but has a history of campaigning to censor conservatives. She calls Fox News dangerous to our democracy and has urged the FCC to revoke Sinclair’s broadcast licenses.” In a defiantly partisan act, Sohn also gave political donations to several Senate Democrats while her nomination is still pending. Senator Cruz asked her “do you believe it was poor judgment to give 12 separate political contributions to Democrat senators while your nomination was pending?” “I’ve never seen that” he added. Newly elected Ohio Senator JD Vance went on the offensive over racially charged tweets Sohn interacted with including one referring to Brett Kavanaugh as an “angry white man.” 

Censoring political speech has been a key goal of the left as the twitter files openly showed. A concerning, to say the least, partnership between the government and partisan censors at social media companies kept important facts out the news that were inconvenient to democrats. These censors never seemed to make mistakes that favored republicans, only mistakes that protected their democrat friends including the Biden campaign. Now, the Biden administration is brazenly attempting to shove through Gigi Sohn who has only the worst of intentions with respect to censoring conservative free speech.

As if her dismally partisan record on free speech wasn’t bad enough, Gigi Sohn also has also turned up her nose at America’s heartland by downplaying the need for high speed internet in more rural places of the country. Rollcall’s recent article “Gaps in Broadband Access is Backdrop to Sohn’s FCC Nomination Fight” cites a rural small business owner on the matter: “Ashley Bachmann, owner of the Cheetah B’s restaurant in Petersburg, W.Va., told lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee this month that at times she has to collect customers’ credit card details for use later, when she regains her internet connection. She only then learns if the payment will go through. ‘It affects our business constantly,’ she said.” Indeed, services like broadband have helped thousands of small businesses in rural parts of the country connect to their customers and the larger world. Unfortunately, Sohn’s past statements indicate that she is likely prioritize “equity” over rural access by bringing internet to already heavy connected urban areas rather than filling in the huge gaps across America’s rural towns. Farms and even mom and pop shops with owners who have chosen to live far outside of major cities depend on access to the internet to keep their operations running. With family farms disappearing at alarming rates, you would think helping these salt of the earth American job creators stay in business would be a priority. Instead, Sohn seems openly hostile to these businesses, perhaps because they tend to lean more conservative. 

While the world is distracted by balloons and the fake liberal media outrage of the day, AMAC Action remains focused on stopping bad laws from passing and bad nominees from approval. The Biden administration’s “throw everything at the wall” approach requires formidable pushback on all fronts. Have you done your research on Sohn‘s record and are you planning to exercise your first amendment rights by telling your Senators how they should vote on Sohn’s nomination? Let us know in the comments below. The protection of free and open political speech as guaranteed in the Constitution is far too important to let any more nominees who are openly biased against conservatives slip through the cracks. 

Bob Carlstrom is President of AMAC Action.