Democrats Punish FCC's Rosenworcel For Fighting Cable Box Reform

We've noted a few times how the FCC's plan to open up the cable box to competition was met by a massive wave of distortions and outright lies by the cable industry, which opposes the plan because it makes $20 billion annually renting out the closed, proprietary devices. From paying Jesse Jackson to claim the FCC's plan was racist, to endless editorials claiming cable box competition would hurt consumers, the cable industry successfully waged one of the biggest lobbying counter assaults on record.

And it worked, ultimately even turning Jessica Rosenworcel, one of the FCC's Democrats that voted for the FCC's original proposal, against the FCC's plan

Now Democrats are getting some payback. The GOP has routinely blocked re-confirming Rosenworcel to the commission. But this week Senators Ed Markey and Ron Wyden filed a formal objection to Rosenworcel’s confirmation, effectively putting her confirmation on hold.

With the FCC shifting to the traditional 3-2 Republican to Democrat split under a Trump administration, Democrats want to ensure both of those commissioners will be certain to look out for consumers and not, as Rosenworcel did, be mislead by industry arguments that don't hold water. Markey "wants an FCC commissioner who is unequivocally committed to pro-consumer, pro-competition policies," an anonymous Senate Democratic aide tells the Washington Post.

"Recent actions from Commissioner Rosenworcel have called that commitment into question," the source added.

Among the claims Rosenworcel bought into during debate over the FCC's cable box plan was the US Copyright Office claim that the plan would somehow violate copyright and result in soaring piracy rates. But despite this claim, the cable box reform effort had nothing to do with copyright -- and everything to do with the cable industry protecting a very profitable walled garden from hardware and streaming video competition.

It's unclear who would replace Rosenworcel as the Democrat's pick to sit alongside Mignon Clyburn as a counter-balance to Republic FCC commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O'Reilly. Under FCC rules current boss Tom Wheeler could stay on as a vanilla commissioner, but not as FCC chairman.