Key Carr Ally Backs Charter-Cox Deal After Finding No 'Invidious' DEI Concerns

Merger: Charter Communications’ $34.5 billion merger with Cox Communications has the support of Daniel Suhr, President of the Center for American Rights, a Chicago-based organization with substantial clout with current FCC leadership. “Reviewing Charter’s recent record encourages us that this merger will serve the public interest given management’s track record of investing in all its American workers and all our American communities,” Suhr said in a six-page filing that the FCC received on Oct. 4 but did not post to its website until yesterday, probably because of the 43-day federal government shutdown. Suhr has the ear of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on a number of policy issues. CAR’s broadcast TV news distortion complaint against 60 Minutes is still pending at the agency.

Charter has a strong Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) profile, an effort begun about a decade ago by establishing a senior corporate executive with the title of Chief Diversity Officer. “Charter has undertaken some diversity-related initiatives in the past, as did many similarly situated companies. However, the Center’s review of publicly available information about Charter’s current programs indicates that the company complies with the Commission’s standards prohibiting invidious racial discrimination,” Suhr said. Carr has pointed to “invidious discrimination” as an obstacle to obtaining transaction approval by his agency. In May, Verizon notified the FCC that it had ended its DEI policies just prior to FCC approval of Verizon’s $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications. Carr praised Verizon’s decision in a post on X, calling it “a step forward for equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and the public interest.” (More after paywall.)