Ted Cruz moves to confirm Trump FCC nominee in lame duck session

Senator Ted Cruz scheduled a November 10 Senate Commerce Committee nomination hearing to advance President Trump’s FCC nominee, Danielle Thumann Severs, and is pushing to move the nomination to a full Senate vote before Democrats take control in January 2027. Confirming Thumann Severs would give Republicans a 3-1 advantage on the five-member Federal Communications Commission, an unusual partisan tilt that could become a 3-0 panel at the end of 2027 if President Trump does not renominate Democratic commissioner Anna Gomez. Senator Ron Wyden warned that federal law forbids an all-Republican FCC and wrote that actions by a partisan commission could be overturned in court, citing the Communications Act. The Communications Act sets a quorum at three members and bars a supermajority from the same political party, a statutory framework long upheld by bipartisan pairing of nominations. Thumann Severs is an attorney who serves as senior counsel to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, and Trump nominated her in August after a September hearing was postponed for her maternity leave. Gomez issued a statement today calling on Congress to fill the empty FCC seats in a bipartisan manner and urged restoring the public interest standard to protect communities, the First Amendment, and competitive innovation. Cruz is using his final two months as chairman of the Commerce Committee to press the confirmation before the new Senate majority convenes.