Sources: the White House is considering Nathan Simington, an NTIA advisor who is said to have helped draft Trump's social media EO, as the next FCC commissioner
Trump's next FCC pick is far more eager to regulate the internet than most conservative telecom policy people have been comfortable with in the past https://www.theverge.com/... Lindsey Barrett / @lam_barrett : extremely no thank you please https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Jake Kastrenakes / @jake_k : this would be a big deal as trump pushes the fcc to worm its way into social media regulation https://twitter.com/... Karl Bode / @karlbode : O'Rielly showed the faintest HINT of original thinking by LIGHTLY criticizing Trump's dumb, unenforceable social media exec order, and is quickly replaced by somebody eager to show the proper level of sycophancy. aren't authoritarian governments a hoot? https://twitter.com/... @haroldfeld : Apparently, Trump plans to discard the now 30 yr old tradition of consulting with the relevant party Congressional leadership on @FCC picks (other than the Chair). i assume Rs will let this pass unmarked. But it would give Biden a precedent going forward (if he wins). https://twitter.com/... @alex : I had forgot that POTUS had dropped @mikeofcc over his views that the first amendment matters https://www.theverge.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second time Trump has remade the commission from within: in 2017 he elevated sitting GOP commissioner Ajit Pai to the chairmanship, tapping Pai to lead the agency. The reported Simington pick follows the same playbook but points the opposite direction ideologically — away from telecom deregulation and toward an FCC willing to regulate platforms.
Simington sits at the NTIA and is said to have helped draft the social media executive order that drew even faint criticism from commissioner Michael O'Rielly, whose seat this would fill. Within days the consideration hardened into a confirmed nomination plan, making this the moment the White House chose a commissioner explicitly for platform-regulation appetite.
First-order effects
- O'Rielly loses his path to reconfirmation after publicly criticizing the social media executive order, replaced by an advisor whose drafting role on that same order signals the White House wants a vote for FCC involvement in content policy.
- Conservative telecom policy circles are forced to take a position: the pick favors intervening in social media over the hands-off orthodoxy most of them had been comfortable with.
Second-order effects
- With Pai expected to leave when control shifts and experts predicting reversal of his controversial decisions, Simington becomes the Republican holdover anchoring the commission's minority side through the transition.
- The subsequent 49-47 Senate confirmation showed how narrow the coalition for this pick was, foreshadowing a commission mired in partisan gridlock rather than consensus telecom work.
Third-order effects
- Biden's months-long delay in naming new FCC and NTIA leadership left the agency stalled on items like net neutrality reinstatement — a five-year Simington term hardens the pattern of the FCC's agenda being set by whoever holds the White House rather than by the agency itself.
- If each administration keeps installing commissioners chosen for their posture toward platforms, the FCC's center of gravity shifts from spectrum and infrastructure policy toward becoming a standing venue for social-media regulation fights.
The trend: The FCC is drifting from a deregulatory telecom agency into a partisan instrument for platform-content policy, with commissioners increasingly selected for their willingness to regulate social media.