President Joe Biden has designated Acting Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to lead the FCC officially, while nominating a fifth commissioner to fill out an empty seat and a new assistant secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Rosenworcel will be the first woman to officially chair the FCC in the agency’s history. She is the second woman to serve as acting chair; former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn was the first woman to fill the acting chair position.
“I am deeply humbled to be designated as Chair of the Federal Communications Commission by President Biden. It is an honor to work with my colleagues on the Commission and the agency’s talented staff to ensure that no matter who you are or where you live, everyone has the connections they need to live, work, and learn in the digital age,” said Rosenworcel in a statement.
Biden also nominated Gigi Sohn to fill the currently open fifth commissioner seat on the FCC, and named Alan Davidson as the nominee for assistant secretary for communications and information at NTIA. All the nominees must be confirmed by the Senate; Rosenworcel’s term on the commission expires at the end of this year, so she has both been re-nominated and designated as chair.
The series of nomination announcements yesterday mark the long-awaited movement of the Biden administration to seat a full, five-seat FCC. The bipartisan, independent agency has two members from each party and a chairman designated by the president. The current FCC has had four commissioners — two Democrats (Rosenworcel and Commissioner Geoffrey Starks) and two Republicans (Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington) — since former Chairman Ajit Pai stepped down at the close of the Trump administration, as is usual.
Simington issued a statement extending “heartfelt” congratulations to Rosenworcel and added, “The FCC has much important work to do and I am eager to continue to implement sound policy on a bipartisan basis.”
“During the past ten months, under the leadership of Chairwoman Rosenworcel, I have enjoyed the chance to work in a bipartisan manner to advance the public interest, and I look forward to the opportunity to continue this important work with my FCC colleagues,” said Carr in a statement congratulating the nominees.
Gigi Sohn, who was nominated to fill the empty fifth seat on the FCC, is a longtime public interest lawyer and was an FCC counselor to former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler. She left the agency in 2016; she is currently a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and she also co-founded the advocacy group Public Knowledge.
Starks called Sohn “an accomplished leader whose talent, expertise, and experience will invigorate our work at the FCC” and added that Alan Davidson’s “deep experience
and commitment to advancing the public interest make him an outstanding choice” for the NTIA position.
“Protecting consumers, advancing national security, promoting diverse media, and making modern communications networks accessible and affordable for every American are enormous tasks that require a full-strength FCC,” said Starks.
“I am thrilled President Biden is nominating three such experienced public servants to fill out his telecommunications team,” said WIA President and CEO Jonathan Adelstein in a statement on the nominations. “We need these outstanding leaders confirmed as soon as possible to address the many pressing issues on the agenda, including winning the race to 5G. I have worked with each of them for over two decades and know them to be knowledgeable, open, and dedicated to advancing America’s telecommunications leadership.”
Both Davidson and Sohn have spent time at the Mozilla Foundation; Sohn as a fellow, Davidson as the VP of global policy, trust and security. Davidson also served as the first director of digital economy at the U.S. Department of Commerce and senior advisor to the Secretary of Commerce during the Obama administration. He also previously served as Google’s director of public policy in the Americas, leaving that position in 2012.
In a blog post, the Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Mark Surman said that Davidson “showed a fierce commitment to issues like net neutrality, strong encryption, and consumer privacy” and that Sohn “has fought tirelessly for Americans’ right to privacy, the importance of competition, the need for fast and fair networks, and a range of other issues in service of the public good.”
