President Donald Trump has just nominated Geoffrey Starks to fill the fifth seat at the FCC, which was vacated by Mignon Clyburn once his term was up. Starks is a Democrat, which might be surprising to many, after how the President has gone after Democrats in recent months, calling them “obstructionists”. But, the FCC must remain a 3-2 split, with the party that’s in power having three FCC commissioners, and the opposing party having two. That means that this seat was destined to be a democrat seat anyways. Trump got the nomination from the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Now Starks must be approved by Congress to begin his term with the FCC, which would last until 2022.
Starks had been a FCC staffer for a few years, so he’s not new to the department. He also did not advocate for any political positions while he was a staffer. However, since he was recommended by the Democratic leadership, it wouldn’t be to surprising for Starks to stick to the Democrats interests and also oppose most of Pai’s agenda – which includes demolishing Net Neutrality. Starks does have degrees from both Harvard University and Yale Law School, so like most in politics, he does have a law degree.
The Federal Communications Commission is a body of the US government that many people don’t know too much about. It’s mostly in charge of the Internet in this day and age, but as the name alludes, it is in charge of communications. The most public things that the FCC has been dealing with in recent years have been spectrum auctions and Net Neutrality. With Net Neutrality, Internet Service Providers must treat all Internet traffic the same. That means that they cannot throttle video traffic from Netflix or YouTube and prioritize traffic from Go90. But that is being dismantled thanks to FCC Chairman, Ajit pai. Though, the democrats do have one more vote in the Commission to help stop Pai’s agenda, that is if Starks is approved – which it is fairly likely he will.