President Joe Biden wanted Gigi Sohn to fix America’s internet — what went wrong?

Nearly 500 days had passed since President Joe Biden first picked Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to become the third Democrat to the nation’s top telecommunications regulator, and she was nowhere closer to confirmation than when her name was first announced in October 2021. Sohn was met with a fierce opposition campaign traditionally saved for a president’s Supreme Court or cabinet nominees. Sohn's nomination was supposed to be the crowning achievement of her 30-year career — and more importantly, a key piece of President Biden’s plans for the internet. The covid pandemic had shown just how necessary improving internet access was across the US. Parents drove up to fast food restaurants for Wi-Fi so their kids could finish their remote schooling homework, and libraries became hubs for rental hotspots. The Biden administration’s goal was to finally bridge the digital divide, expanding access to high-speed broadband everywhere. But by March 7th, 2023, Sohn knew it was over. After three nominations and three confirmation hearings that got nastier with each new iteration, the votes just weren’t there. Her opposition had read all of her tweets, found faults in nearly every position she ever held, and made up new problems when everything else wasn’t enough. Sohn, herself, felt like she’d been held at arm’s length, unable to respond to the smear campaign consuming her life and nomination. Sohn, it turned out, had drawn the attention of the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) — a conservative-aligned dark money group tied to the Trump-backed Conservative Partnership Institute. The AAF was known for instigating controversies around Democratic lawmakers. Outside observers noted the marked lack of support. “They didn’t [the White House] put the requisite firepower a government would need to have done to counteract a multimillion-dollar dark money campaign,” Ernesto Falcon, senior legislative counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said.