February 8, 2023

Senator Michael Bennet Senator Catherine Cortez Masto

261 Russell Senate Building 313 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510

Senator John Fetterman Senator Raphael Warnock

B40B Dirksen Senate Office Building 388 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510

Senators Bennet, Cortez Masto, Fetterman, and Warnock:

I am writing today to request that you recuse yourself from voting on the nomination of Ms.
Gigi Sohn, who President Biden has nominated to serve as a member of the Federal
Communications Commission. Ms. Sohn’s donations to your campaigns and your acceptance of
her contributions during the pendency of her confirmation have irrevocably corrupted the
decision-making process and made an objective vote on her confirmation impossible.

As the Senate Ethics Manual rightly points out, “The public has a right to expect Members,
officers, and employees to exercise impartial judgment in performing their duties. The receipt of
gifts, entertainment, or favors from certain persons or interests may interfere with this impartial
judgment, or may create an appearance of impropriety that may undermine the public’s faith in
government.”1 While Ms. Sohn’s donations were not illegal, they were unethical. The campaign
contributions will undermine the people’s confidence in your and her decisions by creating the
perception that campaign contributions are part of lawmaker’s decision-making process to
support her, and that Ms. Sohn has a bias towards certain lawmakers, those who she has
donated to, and is incapable of rendering impartial decisions at the Federal Communications
Commission.

Ms. Sohn’s own organization, Public Knowledge, highlighted what many believe is the pernicious
effect of campaign contributions, specifically their ability to sway members on vital public policy
issues. In 2011 during the debate over the FCC’s consideration of a merger review Public
Knowledge commented, “Of the 104 legislators who signed the letter to allow the country’s
largest broadband provider, which also owns considerable programming properties to take over
a broadcast network, movie studio and cable programmer, 88 received campaign contributions
from Comcast last year, according to Open secrets.org.”2 Public Knowledge outlined the crux of
our concern with your acceptance of donations from Ms. Sohn - that it creates a reasonable

1 SENATE ETHICS MANUAL, Select Committee on Ethics United States Senate, 108th Congress 1st Session, Page 21
https://www.ethics.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/f2eb14e3-1123-48eb-9334-8c4717102a6e/2003-senate-ethics-
manual.pdf
2 What Congressional Letters Really Mean, By Public Knowledge, January 17, 2011

https://publicknowledge.org/what-congressional-letters-really-mean/
perception among the public that your support and activism on behalf of the nomination is due
in part to the financial contributions you received from the nominee.

While the acceptance of the contribution was problematic enough to warrant recusal, Ms.
Sohn’s act of donating during the pendency of her nomination is possibly more troubling. The
Federal Communications Commission is charged with impartial decision-making on a number of
highly contentions and often politically charged matters. Whether it is the fairness doctrine,
regulation of carriers who some see as having a particular political bias, or issues related to
political advertising, as a Commissioner, Ms. Sohn could be called upon to decide issues that
have an outcome that favors one political party over another. Americans should expect her to
make those decisions based on merit, unfortunately Ms. Sohn’s donations will lead many
Americans to the conclusion that she’s not an impartial arbiter, but rather a political partisan.

Because of the corrosive effect that Ms. Sohn’s contributions will have both on the perception
of the impartiality of your vote as well as on the faith in her impartiality as a Commissioner, I
urge you to recuse yourself from voting on her nomination so that the American people can be
assured that Senator’s votes are not for sale.

Sincerely,
Thomas Jones
President, American Accountability Foundation