NEW: The surprise group of conservatives who support Biden’s left-wing FCC nominee Gigi Sohn
Story on the Washington Examiner website here: The surprise group of conservatives who support Biden’s left-twing FCC nominee Gigi Sohn
A left-wing Federal Communications Commission nominee needed to implement President Joe Biden's telecommunications and technology agenda is receiving surprising support from conservatives who say she has championed their freedom of speech.
President Joe Biden's nominee for federal communications commissioner, Gigi Sohn, is a prominent liberal activist and a former Democratic staffer at the commission who favors net neutrality, stronger government regulation of the broadband industry, and the breakup of Big Tech companies. She would be the third Democrat on the commission, a five-member agency in charge of regulating the TV, radio, and telecommunications industries, along with ensuring broadband internet access.
Senate Republicans strongly oppose her confirmation, criticizing her not only as a left-wing ideologue who would favor heavy-handed regulation but also, unusually, as a threat to censor or block conservative speech.
They cite Sohn's advocacy for Sinclair Broadcasting Group to lose its FCC broadcasting license and her harsh criticism of Fox News as evidence of her willingness to censor conservatives.
Nevertheless, some prominent conservative media owners and commentators who have benefited from her advocacy, as well as certain state Republican representatives, have told the Washington Examiner they support her nomination.
They say their support is based on personal experience working with her and that they are confident she is a free speech advocate.
Furthermore, they say she has the right credentials to help push for productive broadband and telecommunications policies that will encourage competition within those industries, bring more diverse voices into the media landscape, and expand internet access in rural areas.
One Republican, former Rep. Chip Pickering, who represented Mississippi's 3rd Congressional District between 1997 and 2009, has even been lobbying for Sohn on Capitol Hill this week.
“All the conservative censorship concerns with her are caught up in the politics of the moment and fears with Big Tech — it’s not based in any reality of who Gigi is,” Pickering told the Washington Examiner.
“Anyone who knows her knows her firm commitment to the First Amendment and free speech,” said Pickering, who now leads a trade association for internet networks called INCOMPAS.
Sohn, 60, who is a fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law and Policy and a former Democratic staffer at the FCC, is one of the most well-known advocates for breaking up and regulating Big Tech companies. She also strongly favors regulating internet service providers such as Verizon and AT&T as public utilities under what's known as Title II regulations.
“We will get net neutrality, and Title II will happen,” Sohn told the Washington Examiner earlier this year.
Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers should treat all data on the internet the same and not discriminate or charge differently based on where it’s coming from or to whom it’s going.
Under Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the FCC in 2017 voted down rules created by the commission in 2015 that classified internet service providers such as AT&T and Comcast as Title II public utilities, subject to FCC control. Republicans across the board are staunchly opposed to the Title II regulations, in part because the Title II protections would allow the federal government to regulate or control broadband internet prices if it wanted to.
Some conservative media owners have come out in support of Sohn because they have worked with her and benefited from her advocacy for more diverse, less popular views on cable networks.
“The most important belief in my industry is to support diversity in the lineup, which is helpful to OAN and other smaller voices and everyone in the ecosystem,” Charles Herring, the CEO of One America News, a right-wing, pro-Trump cable channel, told the Washington Examiner.
“Gigi really helped us in making that argument and pushing cable companies to open up,” Herring said.
Sohn and the consumer advocacy group she started, Public Knowledge, teamed up with conservative cable channels such as OAN, Wealth TV, Newsmax, RDF TV, and TheBlaze during the early 2010s in an attempt to push cable companies to carry a wider array of content and independent voices outside of the mainstream.
“There’s definitely a business benefit to the conservatives who worked with Gigi and her ability to bring people from diverse backgrounds together, to speak to them in ways they understand,” said John Bergmayer, legal director at Public Knowledge.
Conservative commentator Brad Blakeman, who appears regularly on Newsmax and Fox News and was a top staffer for President George W. Bush, has also vouched for Sohn.
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy has also expressed support for her nomination in conversations, three industry sources said.
These conservatives say that Sohn’s record is misunderstood.
“Republicans who don’t know her are misrepresenting her unfairly. Even though we don’t share many political views, I know from experience that she’s a strong supporter of First Amendment rights,” Herring said.
Bergmayer said that the specific incidents that led Republicans to believe that Sohn favors censorship have been misinterpreted.
He said that Sohn’s suggestion in 2018 that Sinclair Broadcast Group should lose its FCC broadcast license was because of Sinclair lying and misrepresenting itself in its interactions with the FCC, not because it promotes conservative political positions. He also said that her criticism of Fox News last year was justified because of concerns around misinformation and disinformation regarding the 2020 election and the coronavirus pandemic.
During an interview with the Washington Examiner earlier this year, Sohn said she had issues with certain news coverage by CNN and other mainstream or left-leaning news outlets as well.
Some Republicans at the state level have also come out in support of Sohn’s nomination because of her push for broadband expansion in underserved parts of the country.
“Politically, I’m quite sure we have our differences, but on internet issues, we’ve seen eye to eye,” said Daniel Linville, a Republican in the West Virginia House of Delegates and the chairman of the Technology and Infrastructure Committee.
Linville said Sohn helped him, on a voluntary basis, craft broadband legislation for the state, which has severely lackedinternet access for many years and continues to get worse.
“She’s been helpful to my work locally, and she would be a good commissioner for the FCC, especially for broadband expansion and affordability in rural America in particular,” Linville told the Washington Examiner.
West Virginia House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, one of the top Republicans in the state, also supports her nomination.
“I don’t have any fears of Gigi censoring conservatives and hurting us. I like that we have a Democrat publicly pushing rural broadband expansion, so I'm excited for her nomination,” Hanshaw told the Washington Examiner.
Republicans who disagree with her politics and some of her regulatory policies still say they like her as a person and don’t think the fears of potential censorship are a priority.
“She’s a good person who’s very personable, and she cares about the people and issues within the FCC,” a Republican familiar with telecommunications and broadband issues told the Washington Examiner.
“The Republicans focusing on Gigi directly censoring speech isn't really a concern, that's not the problem, it’s her being a left-wing activist that is of real concern as an FCC nominee,” they added.