Policyband

Democrat Rosenworcel’s Progressive FCC Legacy Resides on Wikipedia, Not in the Federal Code

The Biden FCC’s hard pivot left on Net Neutrality and Digital Discrimination lost in federal court, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr dismantled Rosenworcel’s ‘homework gap’ overreach with USF money

Ted Hearn

May 8, 2026 — 10 min read

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■ Big Four Gobble Up Lots of Gray Media’s Retrans Revenue ■ Trusty Calls for U.S. Leadership as Drones and AI Converge ■ GCI Liberty Changing Its Name to Liberty Capital Corp. ■ Broadband Losses Start to Slow at GCI ■ In Blasting Carr, Senate Democrats Didn’t Mention Disney or DEI ■ O’Rielly Applauds Rep. Guthrie’s Data Privacy Bill ■ TDS Offers to Buy Full Control of Array Digital Infrastructure ■ NTIA’s Roth Unveils Website to Track Federal Spectrum Policy

Jessica: It may have been premature in December 2024 for New Street Research policy advisor Blair Levin to declare that Democratic FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel had “the least consequential term as Chair in modern FCC history.” But not anymore. Today, Rosenworcel’s tenure has effectively been erased by the courts and by her successor, Republican FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.

Rosenworcel’s chairmanship was structurally weakened from the start. She had only 16 months with a Democratic majority because Commissioner Anna Gomez did not arrive until Sept. 25, 2023, following the Gigi Sohn nomination collapse. In that narrow window, Rosenworcel pursued an ambitious progressive agenda to reshape broadband policy, expand the agency’s reach into education, and generally tighten oversight of the communications industry. But nearly every major pillar of that agenda has now been dismantled.