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Senate Finally Confirms 5th FCC Commissioner After Vacancy of More Than 2.5 Years
Today, the U.S. Senate confirmed Anna Gomez to the Federal Communications Commission in a bipartisan 55-43 vote. Commissioner Gomez fills a slot at the agency which has been vacant since President Biden took office in January of 2021. The vacancy had often left the commission deadlocked 2-2 on critical matters, and her confirmation will allow the agency to move forward.
Statement of Ishan Mehta, Common CauseDirector for Media and Democracy
With the confirmation of Anna Gomez to the FCC, the agency can now move forward to advance reforms that will benefit every American household – including providing robust and affordable connectivity that has become crucial to participating in our democracy and society. The confirmation of Commissioner Gomez breaks more than two and a half years of gridlock that has hobbled the FCC while Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats refused to confirm Gigi Sohn, the previous nominee.
With a full complement of commissioners, the FCC should quickly move to address issues that impact every one of us. With the commission deadlock broken, the FCC must rapidly move forward on addressing net neutrality, broadband connectivity, and media ownership concentration.
A free and open media is essential to democracy, and the FCC can once again hold media accountable to their public interest obligations.
Today’s confirmation of Anna Gomez is a win for American households from coast to coast that will see an FCC looking after their interests instead of corporate interests.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
(202) 833-1200LATEST NEWS
Even Once Reluctant Scholars Now Agree on Israel's Gaza Assault: It's a Genocide
"Can I name someone whose work I respect who doesn't consider it genocide?" said one researcher. "No."
May 15, 2025
Only a tiny number of progressive Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. have used the word "genocide" to describe Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza, and the U.S. public divided, with less than 40% of Americans saying last year that the term described the Israel Defense Forces' bombing of hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and other civilian infrastructure.
But for seven leading international experts on genocide, the question is not controversial—even for those who previously rejected the label.
The seven experts were interviewed Wednesday by NRC, a newspaper in the Netherlands, and were unequivocal: Not only have they all come to believe—some earlier than others—that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, but the vast majority of their peers in academia concur.
"Can I name someone whose work I respect who doesn't consider it genocide?" said Raz Segal, an Israeli genocide researcher at Stockton University in New Jersey. "No."
Uğur Ümit Üngör, a professor at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies, added, "I don't know them."
The interview was published the day before Nakba Day, the 77th anniversary of Palestinians' forced expulsion from their lands when Israel was established, and as the death toll in Gaza reached 53,010. At least 15,000 of those killed have been children, NRC reported.
When it comes to defining the last 19 months in Gaza as a genocide, reported the newspaper, "even cautious voices have changed."
Israeli scholar Shmuel Lederman of Open University of Israel "opposed the genocide label" until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government flouted the International Court of Justice's January 2024 order to prevent genocide by allowing emergency aid into Gaza and halting top officials "incendiary language on Palestinians." Israeli leaders have called Palestinians "human animals" and "Amalek"—an ancient enemy in the Hebrew Bible who Israelites were commanded to exterminate.
Lederman also began to see his government as genocidal after the Israel Defense Forces seized control of the Rafah crossing last year, cutting off the only humanitarian aid route as international experts warned famine was imminent, and as analysts warned the true death toll in Gaza could ultimately be close to 200,000.
"For me personally, the combination of this and the continued destruction of Gaza made the turn from harsh criticism of the crimes Israel is committing in Gaza and warnings that we are getting close to that place, to the perception that the cumulative effect of what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocidal in every sense," said Lederman on the social media platform X on Thursday. "I think the second half of 2024 is the point at which a consensus emerged among genocide researchers (as well as the human rights community) that this was genocide. Those who may have still had doubts—I estimate that they have dissipated following Israel's actions since the cease-fire was broken."
Since March, when Israel reimposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid and broke a temporary cease-fire, nearly 3,000 Palestinians have been killed in bombings, and nearly 250,000 people are now facing "extreme deprivation of food," according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
Melanie O'Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, told NRC that Israel's deliberate blockade on "food, water, shelter, and sanitation" convinced her the Netanyahu government was carrying out a genocide, while Segal pointed to "openly genocidal statements" by Israeli leaders.
"But for all it is about the sum of what would apply separately as 'ordinary' war crimes," NRC reported. "The picture as a whole makes it a genocide. That is how the term is meant, says [British professor Martin] Shaw: 'holistic.'"
"Apart from social debate, genocide is also the subject of science," reads the article. "And that field of research, genocide studies, does not see it as a yes/no question, but as a process. Not a light switch, but a 'dimmer,' in the words of professor of Holocaust and genocide studies Uğur Ümit Üngör."
NRC noted that the Western media and political debates have been consumed with "misunderstandings and simplifications."
Those who continue defending Israel's actions insist that "it is a military war to destroy Hamas, there is no clear eradication plan, not all Gazans have been killed, it does not look like the Holocaust, the judge has not yet ruled."
As historian Rutger Bregman said on X Thursday, the scholars interviews by NRC make clear: "Genocide is a process, it's not a binary switch. And it's not about matching the Holocaust."
Segal, who is Jewish, told NRC that he is "regularly accused of antisemitism" for speaking out against Israel.
"A German authority in the field that wants to remain anonymous calls the subject 'poisoned' in his country," reported NRC. "You are, he says, called directly [antisemitic] if you mention 'possible genocide.' If these acts are subjected to a country other than Israel, he says, all Germans would immediately sound the alarm and speak of genocidal violence, as happened with the Russian massacre in the Ukrainian city of Botzja. But now, he says, it remains silent."
Dirk Moses, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Genocide Research, said that portions of the field of research are "in crisis" if experts don't "combat the artificial distinction between [genocide] and military targets" and continue to defend Israel's actions.
"Then parts of the field of research are actually dead," he said. "Not only conceptually incoherent, but complicit."
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'Sheer Cruelty': Outrage as GOP Moves Ahead With Measure to Defund Planned Parenthood
"This is nothing more than an attempt to end abortion in the United States, and they are willing to take away birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment and more to do it," said the head of the reproductive healthcare group.
May 15, 2025
As the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday voted along party lines to advance legislation that includes a measure which seeks to cut Medicaid funding for the abortion and healthcare provider Planned Parenthood, reproductive rights defenders are sounding the alarm on the impacts that such a move would have.
"This provision is about punishing Planned Parenthood health centers for providing abortion care, and threatening access to affordable birth control, wellness checkups, and cancer screenings for millions of people across the country in the process," said Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, in a statement on Wednesday.
"It is indefensible how far abortion opponents, who claim to care about women and families, are willing to go to shut down health centers and line the pockets of billionaires and big corporations," McGill added.
The measure is part of a sweeping GOP spending and tax cuts bill currently making its way through Congress. The House Energy and Commerce Committee's portion of the legislation also includes cuts to Medicaid and takes back unspent funds from Inflation Reduction Act grant programs.
The outlet NOTUSreported Wednesday that the measure pertaining to Planned Parenthood would bar the organization from receiving federal funds, even via Medicaid payments. According to the 19th, the language of the measure does not specifically call out Planned Parenthood, but is crafted to apply to the organization.
The proposed cuts would impact Planned Parenthood's ability to offer services like birth control, cancer screenings, and pap smears. Medicaid is already barred from providing funds for abortion care, which only account for a small percentage of the services that Planned Parenthood's affiliates provide.
"It's no surprise that a goal of this reconciliation bill is to force Planned Parenthood health centers to shut down. Republicans have been trying—unsuccessfully—to shut down Planned Parenthood for decades," said Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, an abortion rights and reproductive freedom group. "Plain and simple, this legislation will mean millions of people will have nowhere to go for basic health care."
"The sheer cruelty and enormity of their actions, and the harm they will inflict on the very people they were elected to represent, is unconscionable," Timmaraju continued.
Rachana Desai Martin, chief U.S. program officer at the Center for Reproductive Rights, on Tuesday denounced the fact that Trump has already frozen millions in funding for Planned Parenthood through the Title X program.
Planned Parenthood has said freezing that funding "effectively blocks people from getting birth control, STI testing and treatment, and lifesaving cancer screenings."
Speaking Tuesday, before the committee advanced its portion of the bill, Martin said that the Center for Reproductive Rights stands with Planned Parenthood and all reproductive healthcare providers and that "these baseless, politically motivated attacks against reproductive health care providers must stop."
A leaked preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported on by Mother Jones this week estimates that the measure aimed at Planned Parenthood would cost taxpayers $300 million over the next ten years. According to the outlet, spokespeople at CBO did not offer comment on how they came to that $300 million figure.
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2nd-Place Runner in High School Race Rips Maine GOP Lawmaker for Attacking Trans Winner
"I don't feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points."
May 15, 2025
A high school runner in Maine who finished second to a transgender competitor at a recent track meet said this week that a Republican state lawmaker's "hateful" crusade targeting trans athletes—not the fact that she had to compete against one—dampened her sporting joy.
Anelise Feldman, a freshman at Yarmouth High School in southern Maine, finished second to Soren Stark-Chessa, a multisport standout at rival North Yarmouth Academy, at a May 2 intramural meet.
"I ran the fastest 1,600-meter race I have ever run in middle school or high school track and earned varsity status by my school's standards," Feldman wrote in a letter to The Portland Press Herald published Wednesday. "I am extremely proud of the effort I put into the race and the time that I achieved. The fact that someone else finished in front of me didn't diminish the happiness I felt after finishing that race."
"The fact that someone else finished in front of me didn't diminish the happiness I felt after finishing that race."
Feldman's letter was prompted by State Rep. Laurel Libby's (R-90) comments during a Fox Newsinterview earlier this month in which the lawmaker, while not naming Stark-Chessa, referred to her accomplishments and accused transgender athletes of "pushing many, many of our young women out of the way in their ascent to the podium."
Feldman stressed: "I don't feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points."
"We are all just kids trying to make our way through high school," she added. "Participating in sports is the highlight of high school for some kids. No one was harmed by Soren's participation in the girls' track meet, but we are all harmed by the hateful rhetoric of bullies, like Rep. Libby, who want to take sports away from some kids just because of who they are."
Maine has found itself at the epicenter of the fight for transgender rights as President Donald Trump's administration renews its first-term campaign to roll them back via policies including: redefining Title IX anti-discrimination law to cancel protection for trans and nonbinary people, trying to reinstate the ban on openly transgender people from military service, ending "X" gender markers on passports, banning federal support for gender-affirming healthcare, pressuring schools to censor lessons and materials about trans and nonbinary people, erasing transgender people and stories from government-run institutions and websites, and much more. Bowing to pressure from Trump, the National Collegiate Athletic Association also banned trans women from competing on female sports teams.
This, as hundreds of anti-trans bills have also been passed or proposed in nearly every state in the nation. Maine, however, has been moving in the opposite direction by expanding an anti-discrimination law to protect transgender student-athletes.
This has made the state a target of the Trump administration. Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills first stoked Trump's ire for defying his threats to cut off federal funding if she did not ban transgender women and girls from female teams, a move that would violate state anti-discrimination law.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state for rebuffing Trump's efforts to ban trans women and girls from scholastic sports. The lawsuit followed the Department of Education's move to cut off federal K-12 funds for Maine and the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) freeze on $100 million in federal funding over the trans athlete issue. The Trump administration also temporarily forced new Maine parents to register their newborns for a Social Security number at a government office rather than at hospitals, a policy quickly reversed amid public outrage.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration quietly settled with Maine, agreeing to scrap its planned cutoff of USDA funding.
"A few months ago, I stood in the White House and, when confronted by the president of the United States, I told him I'd see him in court," Mills triumphantly said following the settlement. "Well, I did see him in court. And we won."
Libby—who is currently banned from voting on legislation until she apologizes for endangering a transgender high school runner by posting a photo of her winning a race without blurring the face—misgendered trans athletes and portrayed them as violent and dangerous during a legislative hearing earlier this week.
"Girls are being asked to accept second place as their ceiling, not because they didn't work hard enough, but because someone else's belief has been elevated above their right to compete fairly and safely," Libby said.
However, the stats don't support her assertion. None of the 10 fastest times ever run by a U.S. high school girl in either the 800 or 1,600-meter races have recorded by a transgender runner. Nor does any trans runner appear on the list of the 10 fastest athletes in either race.
Stark-Chessa's 800 meter time was 2:43, a full 44 seconds behind the all-time high school girls' record of 1:59. Her 1,600 meter time of 5:57 was over a minute-and-a-half slower than the girls' high school record.
Meanwhile, some of the athletes that do appear in the record book—and their parents—have condemned the backlash against trans competitors, who sometimes face open hostility including incitement to violence.
Opponents of trans women and girls in sport often fixate on genitalia and the notion that unsuccessful male athletes decide to "go trans" in order to escape mediocrity in men's sports.
A peer-reviewed 2023 study noted "the disproportionate focus on the relatively small portion of the population who are trans seems based on the belief that [cisgender] men, who cannot succeed in sports among other cis men, would choose to misidentify as trans women to gain an advantage in sports against cis women."
"However, there are no legitimate cases of this occurring," the paper stresssed.
More importantly, research has shown that trans women who undergo testosterone suppression and gender-affirming medical care do not have any biomedical edge over cis women in sports.
Trans youth do, however, face harassment, violence, discrimination, and other barriers to success and even participation in sports and in general scholastic endeavors. According to the 2022 U.S. Trans Survey, 22% of visibly transgender girls were abused so badly they left shool because of it, while another 10% were expelled.
"The idea that women and girls have an advantage
because they are trans ignores the actual conditions of their lives," Chase Strangio and Gabriel Arkels wrote in a myth-busting ACLU explainer.
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