Rosenworcel Nomination Caught Up in End-Game Chess Match

A tangled mess of two stalled telecommunication bills and the pending nomination of a well-liked tech regulator won’t be resolved until a lame-duck session of Congress, if at all, a top Senate Republican said. At issue is the confirmation of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel of the Federal Communications Commission, a Democrat, for a second term at the agency. If the Senate doesn’t vote before the end of 2016, she’s out. Her term will be up, and there will be no way to extend her tenure, even though she is highly regarded by both Republicans and Democrats.

The standoff over Rosenworcel in the Senate, with several Republican objections to her nomination, has also tied up a bill to strengthen spectrum allocation and a long-overdue measure to reauthorize the FCC. “I don’t think this happens before Nov 8th, but I think when we get back in a lame-duck, I hope that we can bust some things loose and perhaps one of those will be the nomination,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) said after a lengthy oversight hearing on the FCC. Democratic lawmaekrs say that in Dec 2014, then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), promised Senate Democrats that if they voted to confirm Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, the GOP would move swiftly to confirm Rosenworcel at the start of the 114th Congress in January 2015. That’s also when McConnell became majority leader. The Senate Commerce Committee approved her renomination in December, but the floor vote to confirm Rosenworcel has yet to come because of a few GOP objections. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), has blocked two telecom measures reported out of Senate Commerce, both with strong bipartisan support, in retaliation for McConnell’s unwillingness to force the nomination through. Chairman Thune suggested recently that if FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler were to step down following the November elections, it could help free up Rosenworcel’s confirmation vote.