Senate Votes To Approve Anna Gomez as 5th FCC Commissioner (fiercewireless.com) 29
The U.S. Senate today approved a nominee to fill the vacant, fifth seat on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Senate voted 55 to 43 to approve Anna Gomez as the fifth FCC Commissioner. Her term will be for five years from July 1, 2021, so effectively about three years. From a report: Gomez most recently has served as a senior advisor on communications policy at the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. She was also deputy administrator at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) from 2009 to 2013. The NTIA is not only important as the advisor to the President on national spectrum policy, but the agency is also currently overseeing the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.
Finally! (Score:3)
Finally the Senate actually did its job and allowed a nominee to be voted on.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally the Senate actually did its job and allowed a nominee to be voted on.
Not allowing a nominee to be voted on is also part of the Senate's job. Governmental gridlock is good sometimes.
No, it isn't. Their job is to advise and consent (or dissent), not to refuse to advise or consent. What they did is quite literally the opposite of their job. Meanwhile, a cabal of telecommunications companies exploited their excessive influence to stall the nomination for two years.
In an ideal world, there would be a constitutional amendment to give Congress a deadline. If Congress does not vote on a nominee within 90 days, the nominee should be automatically approved. If they aren't willing to stand up and say, "I reject this candidate," then they should not be allowed to profit politically from their cowardly inaction.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Informative)
Turns out the legal adage is the opposite, "Qui tacet consentit": silence implies consent.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm certainly not going to be the one to say that it's OK for the Senate to not be doing its job, but this:
If Congress does not vote on a nominee within 90 days, the nominee should be automatically approved.
is just as bad as the Senate not voting at all, having the unintended consequence that a minority could cause the Senate to "consent" by using parliamentary tactics to stall a vote. Like HL Mencken said, "for every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, clear, and wrong."
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
having the unintended consequence that a minority could cause the Senate to "consent" by using parliamentary tactics to stall a vote.
Actually, they can't. Since 2013 [wikipedia.org], the Senate has only required a simply majority to invoke cloture [wikipedia.org] when considering a nomination. Unless the minority manages to roll the Standing Rules back to their pre-2013 state, they won't be able to do what you describe.
And at least for my part, I really appreciate that the approach suggested above defaults to progress instead of inaction by shifting the onus onto the Senate to actively object, rather than actively approve. We—President and Senate included—are supposed to be working together in good faith for the common good, so if the Senate disagrees with the President's pick it should be something they have to fight against, rather than being able to passive aggressively ignore the pick and hope it goes away. Rejecting the President's candidate is a repudiation of the President's choice—not something to be taken lightly—so they should be forced to stand (and possibly die) on that hill if it's a battle they want to pick.
Make them burn the political capital. Make them take a stand. Make them act. Because if they won't, the job should be done by default lest we end up with the dysfunction that we already have today.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm certainly not going to be the one to say that it's OK for the Senate to not be doing its job, but this:
If Congress does not vote on a nominee within 90 days, the nominee should be automatically approved.
is just as bad as the Senate not voting at all, having the unintended consequence that a minority could cause the Senate to "consent" by using parliamentary tactics to stall a vote. Like HL Mencken said, "for every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, clear, and wrong."
Even if that were possible (and cloture rules on nominees currently don't allow this), the solution to that problem would be a discharge petition. If you can't get 50% of the Senate to agree to a discharge petition, the nomination would presumably have gone through if it went to a vote anyway, though adopting the pre-1930s House rules where a discharge petition requires only a one-third vote would absolutely ensure that this is the case.
Re: (Score:2)
So there actually is a mechanism for getting appointments through when Congress is not in session - the recess appointment:
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
The problem being that the Senate never actually goes into recess any more, instead choosing to have someone stick around and run "pro forma" sessions where no business is actually done other than quorum calls that fail, specifically to block recess appointments (and other reasons).
Re: (Score:3)
Finally the Senate actually did its job and allowed a nominee to be voted on.
Not allowing a nominee to be voted on is also part of the Senate's job. Governmental gridlock is good sometimes.
Furthermore, IMHO, it would be nice to require a super-majority of 2/3 (66.66%) of votes for such "positions". I think it would make those nomination less partisan. Find somebody both sides approve.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Finally! (Score:2)
Which is sad because she was not picked for her abilities. This hurts all of us.
Mitch McConnell is most likely worse off (Score:4, Interesting)
McConnell has been the one keeping it going. He's the one that stalled not one but two Supreme Court nominations and then forced an appointment through during Trump's lame duck session, resulting in Abortion being criminalized in many states once again.
If something like this can happen on McConnell's watch, well, it means he's not watching anymore. He's had some high profile heath issues and my guess is they're an awful lot worse than we're being told...
Now, it probably shouldn't take someone dying or nearly dying to get the gov't to do basic administrative tasks, but that's another matter entirely...
Re: (Score:2)
What resulted in abortion being criminalized was decades of democrat legislatures refusing to do their constitutional duty and actually legislate, instead simultaneously relying on the Supreme Court to do it for them while also fearmongering for decades about the always-imminent revocation of the Roe standard... a decision that even left wing justices like RBG explicitly said was bad law carried out in a bad way.
Re: Mitch McConnell is most likely worse off (Score:1)
But we needed to keep abortion under threat so we could steal votes from Republicans.
8 GOP Senators and 6 House Members (Score:2)
But for some odd reason you're entirely focuses on the 52 Senate Dems and 212 House Dems who would all sign onto such a bill.
You're trying to shift blame. The Republican party and their majority on the SCOTUS did this. With a partisan ruling that cited a 16th century witchfinder general it was so flimsy.
You're like an abusive spouse who says "baby, why ya gotta make me hit ya!". Your posts ar
Re: (Score:2)
There are fifty US states. It is their job to legislate their own internal laws. In quite a lot of them they could have passed a law at any time they pleased during the last FIFTY YEARS. The same goes for the many times the democrats held a filibuster proof supermajority in the federal legislature, if you really insist on giving blue states a free pass to refuse to actually legislate their own laws like they're obligated to.
But for some odd reason you're entirely focused on republicans right here and now to
Re: (Score:1)
The UNCONSTITUTIONAL filibuster allows 1 senator to hold up everything unless you have a super majority.
Majority rule is constitutional and specifically deviates with a super majority for stuff like treaties! But their lie has artificially set super majority as the default.
It's a lawyer hack we're all gullible enough to be suckered by their excuse that they can set rules that any mentally competent person can see is merely a circumvention scheme. WE THE PEOPLE need to punish these lawyers by firing them i
What companies own this one? (Score:2)
We need to see a full financial audit of every FCC Commissioner, before they are approved.
Retroactive??? (Score:2)
Wait, what? "Her term will be for five years from July 1, 2021"--
Her employment is retroactive???
OK, are they also going to give her SES back-pay for the past three years?
Re: (Score:2)
"Her employment is retroactive???"
No, only the calculation of when her term expires is. She won't be getting any back pay.
Re: (Score:2)
I have no idea what it means to say she's appointed as of two years in the past. If you have an actual source explaining this, please show it.
If your answer is "it's logical," I will point out that this is Congress.
Re:Retroactive??? (Score:5, Informative)
She was appointed two years ago, but cannot actually hold the commission seat until confirmed by the Senate, which just happened.
Thus, she was appointed to the term for that seat, whether empty or not, but can only sit in it now. The terms are done this way so that each President has the ability to shape these commissions per their policy goals. In the example of the FCC, you have five commissioners - two Democrats, two Republicans, and then the chairperson who is selected by the President (usually of the same political party). All of that breaks down if the Senate decides to fuck around and not confirm people, and the FCC becomes even more of a political football than it already is.
Re: Retroactive??? (Score:1)
All these appointments should come with a $1 annual salary, they all get millions from lobbyists and interests groups anyway.
Re: (Score:2)