[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 207 (Tuesday, December 8, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S7250]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Nathan Simington

  Madam President, the Senate will also vote on the nomination of 
Nathan Simington, a Republican nominee to the FCC.
  Normally, these nominations to independent Boards and Commissions are 
paired--one Democrat, one Republican--to keep balance on the board, but 
here in the waning days of a lameduck Presidency, the Republican 
majority is rushing to approve a single Republican nominee.
  The nominee himself is far from uncontroversial. Mr. Simington's key 
qualifications seem to be that he supports President Trump's desired 
changes to section 230, a law that regulates internet speech. In fact, 
it appears that he severely misled Senators on the Commerce Committee 
when he told them that while working for a Federal agency, he played 
only an administrative role in his Department's petition for the repeal 
of section 230. It turns out that Mr. Simington was not only pushing 
the petition himself, he was actively lobbying FOX News to support it 
for political reasons.
  I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject 
Mr. Simington's nomination to the FCC.