News Clips

Common Cause has issued a strongly worded plea for the U.S. Senate to confirm Gigi Sohn as a new commissioner to the FCC, saying that “in recent weeks, industry and big money opposition have continued to run a smear campaign to stall Gigi Sohn’s confirmation to serve as FCC commissioner. These attacks have now turned to a more bigoted and hateful nature in an effort to keep the FCC deadlocked. A deadlocked FCC is unable to advance key priorities that address the communications needs of all households. Common Cause calls on the Senate to condemn these attacks and rapidly confirm her to the FCC.” “It is disgraceful that the FCC has been forced into deadlock since the beginning of the Biden administration while big money opposition continues to run a sleazy and bigoted campaign to stall Ms. Sohn’s confirmation,” added Michael Copps, former FCC commissioner and Common Cause special adviser in a statement to the press. “Industry gatekeepers will go to any lengths to smear Ms. Sohn’s name, all to derail her confirmation because they know a fully functional FCC will hold them accountable for engaging in anti-consumer practices.” “Ms. Sohn is more than qualified to be a commissioner and has spent her entire career fighting for the public interest – the core mission of the FCC,” Copps said. “She has the support of nearly 250 organizations including groups from across the political spectrum. We urge the senate to condemn the continued smear campaign against Ms. Sohn and quickly confirm her to the FCC.”

"Industry gatekeepers and big-money opposition have done their part to stall Ms. Sohn's confirmation because they know a fully functional FCC would hold them accountable for engaging in discriminatory and anticompetitive practices," former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, now special adviser to advocacy group Common Cause, said yesterday.

Pro-democracy organization Common Cause said the unregulated Internet since 2017 has seen providers throttle popular video streaming services and degrade video quality to force customers to pay more for better quality, as well as create monopolist plans that favor its services over others. "This approach also weakened the FCC's ability to ensure households remained connected during the height of the pandemic," Yosef Getachew, Common Cause media and democracy program director, said in a statement.

Former acting FCC chairman and Common Cause special adviser Michael Copps was on the same page when it came to Sohn being a key piece in the broadband connectivity puzzle. “[N]one of the White House’s initiatives around halting ongoing consolidation in the broadband sector, restoring a free and open internet, and ensuring marginalized communities have equitable access to communications services can be fully achieved if the FCC remains deadlocked,” he said in a statement following the event. “Congress must take action now to ensure Ms. Sohn receives a vote,” Copps said.  Copps said those gatekeepers were conducting a “sleazy” campaign to undermine Sohn because they knew that “a functional FCC would hold them accountable and prevent them from engaging in anticompetitive and discriminatory practices that undermine our ability to get online.”

Former FCC chairs Ajit Pai, Tom Wheeler, Julius Genachowski, Michael Copps, Michael Powell and Mignon Clyburn said in a joint letter they were "concerned" about the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) recent efforts to revisit the FCC’s 2020 decision to allow use of the C-Band spectrum for wireless use. The former officials said the agencies should work to "resolve the FAA’s concerns expeditiously, but this debate should not be fought publicly in a way that undermines consumer confidence in the process."

“The FAA position threatens to derail the reasoned conclusions reached by the FCC after years of technical analysis and study,” the signers, a mix of Republicans and Democrats, said in the letter. They are Ajit Pai, Tom Wheeler, Mignon Clyburn, Julius Genachowski, Michael Copps and Michael Powell.