Republican senators pummel Biden nominee to FCC
“You’ve said, quote, ‘Republicans know that the only way they can win an election is to suppress the vote’,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) on Tuesday in challenging Gigi Sohn, President Joe Biden’s nominee for a seat on the Federal Communications Commission.
Sullivan is shocked, shocked, that anyone would think Republicans want to suppress the vote. Senate Commerce Committee Republicans find Sohn’s tweets a stumbling block in a way that the former president’s were not.
“Maybe next election, Republicans will stop beating up on gays and women,” Sohn also wrote somewhere. Sohn is openly gay.
“Do you understand just how ridiculously infuriating these statements are?” Sullivan went on. “You are saying Republicans want to suppress the vote.”
We haven’t seen such mock Republican outrage since … since … since the State of the Union Address last week after President Joe Biden looked into the camera and told Americans that some Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare.
Where could Sohn have gotten such an idea about Republicans and vote suppression?
Perhaps the senator from Alaska should visit North Carolina more. The Tar Heel State could add With Almost Surgical Precision to the license plates. Or Wisconsin. Or several other states with a Republican-dominated legislature.
This popped up just Tuesday in North Carolina’s legislature:
North Carolina has had 2-1/2 weeks of early voting for two decades. Two-thirds of the vote is cast early. In larger counties, voters may vote at multiple sites during that period. During lunch. On the way to work, or after. Elderly people who once had trouble getting to the polls manage to find a way there in 2-1/2 weeks and no longer need urgent rides-to-the-polls on Election Day.
Early voting is convenient. Voters like it. Republicans want to cut it by over half. They think they can make it so by constitutional amendment on Election Day 2024. “Consecutive” means they will codify one day of Sunday voting as a sweetener for slashing the schedule.
But how dare you say they want to suppress the vote!
On Thursday, Feb. 9, North Carolina Republicans introduced Senate Bill 88, the so-called Election Day Integrity Act, which would require all election officials to only count mail-in ballots that arrive by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day. Under current law, officials count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and arrive by 5 p.m. on the third day after Election Day.
North Carolina Republicans previously tried to change the absentee ballot deadline in 2021 via an identically named bill, but Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vetoed the proposal, calling it an “ironically named” bill that would ensure “that some [votes] will go uncounted.”
The current policy of allowing absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day three days to arrive at the local Board of Elections is too lenient as well, Republicans believe. Because of cutbacks at USPS, my snail mail first travels to Greenville, South Carolina for sorting before returning here to North Carolina for delivery. I have no idea how many other communities are similarly affected.
With Democrats holding a mere one-vote state House margin for sustaining Cooper’s veto, they believe they can override this time. The Republican majority earlier this session adopted a rule change that would allow veto override votes with no advance notice. Prior rules required two days’ notice. After an uproar, Republicans are reconsidering revising the rule. But the negotiated revision is cosmetic.
Oh right, Gigi Sohn. Her nomination has been held up for 15 months. Advocates view her opposition less charitably (Reuters):
Nearly two dozen LGBTQ advocacy organizations sent a letter to Senate leadership earlier this month urging Sohn’s confirmation and pushing back against what they called “homophobic and sexist fear-mongering” hampering the nomination process.
“It is unconscionable that the Senate has failed to confirm someone so qualified and so dedicated to fighting for the public interest, especially at a time when the American people have needed the FCC to get to work,” said nonprofit Fight for the Future campaigns and managing director Caitlin Seeley George in a statement.
Sohn believes “that regulated entities should not choose their regulator” but that industry insiders want her appointment stopped (The Hill):
“Unfortunately, that is the exact intent of the past 15 months of false and misleading attacks on my record and on my character,” Sohn said.
“My industry opponents have hidden behind dark money groups and surrogates because they fear a pragmatic, pro-competition, pro-consumer policymaker will support policies that will bring more, faster and lower price broadband and new voices to your constituents.”
But her views on vote supression. Shocking!
Update: Fixed a glaring typo in the headline
Update 2: Where do those Democrat scalawgs get such ideas!
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