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On The Verge of Solving the Gigi Sohn Mystery
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on
In the year since Gigi Sohn has been nominated to fill the fifth and final seat on the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), we have been perplexed as to why Gigi hasn't been confirmed yet, as you can see here and here. We were also signatories to a letter of support signed by 250 industry and public interest groups.
And yet remained mystery remained.
Having hunted for an answer for the last several months, The Verge published a piece yesterday, after reaching out to everyone from Fox News, Comcast and former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, a number of current and former members of Congress, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and FCC nominee Gigi Sohn, even the Fraternal Order of Police.
Here's a few snippets of what they reported:
The inability to get Gigi confirmed at the FCC has left the commission deadlocked with two Democrats and two Republicans. That means the commission in charge of regulating all telecom in the United States, including how you get your internet service, is unable to get much done...
Gigi was nominated to the FCC over a year ago, and throughout her career, she has been popular with just about everyone. She is known as an incredibly talented telecom regulator who has been willing to work across the aisle ...
They even interviewed Chris Ruddy, CEO of the conservative news outlet Newsmax:
Chris Ruddy: I’ve strongly supported her nomination. I’ve known her for some time. I think she’s a person of integrity. We probably disagree on a lot of issues. In fact, I know we disagree on any number of big issues. She would probably identify herself as liberal, maybe progressive, and I would say I’m conservative.
Am I going to agree with her on every issue? No, but I do think that the fact that every major big company, all the big conglomerates, don’t like her suggests that maybe she’s on a path that’s at least going to look out a little bit more for the consumer and the little guy and gal, so to speak.
It's gets really intriguiging when the article quotes from an interview The Verge conducted with David Goodfriend, a telecom lawyer who previously worked at the FCC.
David Goodfriend: There are really two companies that have been literally financing a campaign to stop the Senate from confirming Gigi Sohn, and those two companies are Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation and Comcast. Those two companies have paid for lobbyists to actively court swing votes in the Senate against Gigi Sohn...
Read the full article here.
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