A deadlocked FCC can’t finish the job. Urge the White House and your senators to give us a fully functioning agency that can end the digital divide, bring back Net Neutrality and more.

Friend,

In the waning days of the last administration, the Trump White House and Republican-controlled Senate gave us one final parting gift: a deadlocked FCC. That deadlock has put some of our most important work on hold:

• Having an expert agency fully capable of taking bold action to make internet access more affordable and hold ISPs accountable for their abusive behavior
• Restoring Net Neutrality and its crucial protections against discrimination
• Ensuring that people of color have the means to tell and own their own stories, with ownership of media outlets historically locked away in corporate conglomerates’ hands
• Generally picking up the mess that Trump’s FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, left behind

All of those priorities and more are hamstrung with a 2–2 Federal Communications Commission.

We’ve had a lot of strategy conversations here at Free Press Action over the last several months, and inevitably they’ve all ended up in the same conclusion: We need a 5th commissioner, and we need one now.

Urge the White House and your senators to demand a fully functioning FCC.

If the Biden administration truly wants to put an end to the pandemic and Build Back Better (his campaign slogan), that’s going to take adding another strong consumer advocate and civil rights stalwart at the FCC. We’re now a year into the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and nearly 80 million people don’t have adequate broadband at home — with poor families and people of color disproportionately disconnected. That is unacceptable.

Send a note to the White House and your senators urging them to give the nation a fully functioning FCC ASAP.

Thanks for all that you do—

Heather and the rest of the Free Press Action team
freepress.net