Public bickering among members of the Federal Communications Commission is reaching a new high just days before a controversial vote on net neutrality rules.
The five-member commission is no stranger to infighting, due in part to its split between three Democrats and two Republicans. But the recent squabbling comes amid the highest-profile issue the commission has tackled in years, and could point to lasting tensions.
{mosads}Ajit Pai, one of the two GOP commissioners on the panel, has repeatedly gone to the public to drum up opposition to the rules, which he warns will overstep the agency’s authority and doom people’s easy access to the Internet.
On Thursday, he wrote an op-ed in The Chicago Tribune, along with Federal Trade Commissioner Joshua Wright, warning that the looming rules “may take away your freedom to choose the best broadband plan for you.”
On Wednesday, Pai’s chief of staff accused FCC leadership of trying to “block” his office’s press releases by taking one release down to note that it was from the commissioner’s office, not the FCC as a whole.
In recent days, Pai has also appeared on radio and TV shows across the country, talking to conservative pundit Sean Hannity and a slew of local broadcast stations.
While each of the five members of the FCC is free to make his or her case to the public, Pai appears to have particularly relished his role as the foil to agency Chairman Tom Wheeler. Wheeler, for his part, has refrained from mounting a stiff defense to Pai’s barbs.
The increase in attacks comes days ahead of the FCC’s vote on new net neutrality rules next Thursday.
Those rules, which will reclassify broadband Internet service so that it can be regulated under the same authority the FCC uses for utilities like phone lines, come after a call for similar rules from President Obama. Pai and other critics of the plan have accused Wheeler of kowtowing to the president and jeopardizing the FCC’s status as an independent agency.
If anyone has politicized the issue, critics say, it’s Obama, by jumping into the agency’s decision-making process in a high-profile YouTube video just days after the midterm elections.
“It seems to me this is sort of ‘If the goose is doing it, the gander should do it,’ ” said Lawrence Spiwak, the president of the Phoenix Center think tank. He has said that the FCC’s approach is unlikely to stand up in court, and has opposed politicization of the issue on all sides.
Backers of the new rules are more critical of Pai, and have accused him of using the issue to raise his own profile.
“There’s an element of desperation here, in this last ditch effort to prevent the FCC from moving forward,” said Tim Karr, the senior strategy director at Free Press, a group that has pushed for strong net neutrality rules.
“I think they’re trying to stir up the political base to get people on social media, to get the Republican base to be outspoken about this issue, much in the way the net neutrality advocates had such a prominent role in moving Chairman Wheeler to the position that he now holds,” he added, referring to the vocal activist campaign to pressure the FCC to back the new bold rules.