Clyburn Could Decide Soon on FCC Departure
The nomination of Jessica Rosenworcel to return to the FCC as a commissioner (see 1706140065) could provide additional impetus for Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to announce her eventual retirement from the agency, industry officials said. Clyburn has been under some pressure from opponents of Chairman Ajit Pai’s deregulatory agenda to step down in July after her term expires this month to leave the FCC without a quorum (see 1704140061). Clyburn has had little to say on the topic and gave no indication she will leave soon. Clyburn spoke to the Voices for Internet Freedom Public Forum in Atlanta Tuesday night in defense of the 2015 net neutrality rules.
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Former officials said Rosenworcel’s nomination means Clyburn could announce soon her intention to leave, especially since relations between her and Pai have sometimes been tense. “To the extent we’re looking at straws going on the camel’s back, this is another one,” said a former spectrum official. The FCC and Clyburn didn't comment.
“I don’t think [Clyburn] wants to leave the commission in a lurch,” said Lawrence Spiwak, president of the Phoenix Center. Once Rosenworcel is confirmed, Clyburn can leave without concerns she’s leaving behind only two commissioners, he said. Clyburn was acting chairwoman and knows how hard it is to run the agency, Spiwak said. Clyburn seems "unlikely to attempt to disrupt institutional processes by denying a quorum, although such concerns may be partly responsible for the movement on Rosenworcel,” said Doug Brake, senior telecom policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
An aide to a former chairman said Clyburn will do what she herself decides, regardless of what happens with Rosenworcel. If the FCC is left without a quorum, it could push a net neutrality order into 2018, the former official said. Clyburn joined the commission in August 2009.
Assuming Clyburn stays at least until Rosenworcel returns, the process could take months. In early days of the George W. Bush presidency, the fight over judges -- especially Charles Pickering, Sr., a nominee for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- contributed to an almost yearlong delay in Senate confirmation of Jonathan Adelstein as an FCC commissioner. Pickering's son is Incompas CEO Chip Pickering.
Clyburn said an open internet is critical to civil rights, in her speech Tuesday. Leaders of the civil rights movement in the 1960s “would dial a Wide Area Telephone Service, or WATS, line to bypass a switchboard operator who was blocking their call,” Clyburn said. The rotary phone is a technical artifact, “but guess what, it got the job done,” she said. “Today, countless numbers of decentralized groups are held together by a common sense of purpose, coalesced around hashtags, tweets, emails, and videos, distributed via an open internet."
Net neutrality is “the First Amendment for the internet,” Clyburn said. “There is a need for strong rules, grounded in strong legal authority, because they are essential to ensure that the people who create content, who create media, who create art, that they are able to find audiences and make a living.” Current FCC leadership doesn’t care about preserving those protections, she said. “I know I have to go back home with them, but it’s the truth," she said. Clyburn said those at the speech should speak up in favor of preserving the 2015 rules. The FCC released a text of her remarks, which were livestreamed.
Other speakers said Clyburn still plays a critical role at the FCC. Joseph Torres, senior external affairs director at Free Press, said net neutrality is about racial justice. “People of color have had little power over the construction and distribution of our stories,” he said. “Instead, we have been victimized by a false news narrative … that legitimizes racisms and violence against our communities.” Minorities have always been the target of “fake news,” he said. Clyburn “has done something very rare in D.C.; she has listened” to voices “often ignored and marginalized,” Torres said.
“Attacks on the internet” are “aligned with being able to take away peoples’ ability to be heard and visible and counted,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change. ISPs “want to be able to treat the internet like they’re editors of a newspaper” controlling content, he said: The providers said “we can put what’s on the front page on the back page.”