OTI Urges Senate to Table FCC Nomination, Focus on Pandemic

On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee advanced Nathan Simington, President Trump's latest nominee for the Federal Communications Commission. Simington was nominated to replace Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, a Republican whose nomination was revoked in August after he voiced concerns about the president's widely criticized executive order on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. In November, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board called for the Senate to confirm Simington for the explicit purpose of creating a 2-2 deadlock at the FCC and blocking actions that would help Americans access the internet during the pandemic.

The following quote can be attributed to Joshua Stager, senior counsel for New America's Open Technology Institute:

“The Senate should table this unnecessary nomination fight and focus on the pandemic relief legislation that everyone has been waiting for since March. Millions of Americans are suffering through the pandemic without access to the internet. We need FCC commissioners who are laser-focused on this crisis, not waging President Trump's personal vendettas against Twitter. Moreover, the notion that this nominee’s confirmation is explicitly intended to create gridlock at the FCC is galling. The American people don't need gridlock—they need help getting through this pandemic.”