Gigi Sohn, a former FCC counsel and self-described “net neutrality pioneer,” recently received the nomination for the open fifth seat on the commission in the same week that FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel was named permanent chair. Both women are big proponents of reimplementing the Title II regulations that the FCC imposed under former chairman Tom Wheeler that were reversed under former chair Ajit Pai.

President Joe Biden previously released an executive order targeting competition policy that was heavily panned by critics like the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA). The order includes language that encourages the FCC to reinstate net neutrality.

Rosenworcel is in lockstep with Biden on the issue, having voted for Title II regulations initially and calling the decision to end the rules “corrupt.”

Sohn said in a 2019 interview with Vox that the FCC under Pai “abdicated its responsibility to protect consumers and competition in the broadband market.”

As an example to push for net neutrality, Sohn cited the incident when Verizon controversially throttled the data of the Santa Clara County Fire Department during an emergency situation in 2018. TPA pointed out how the situation actually showed how varying data plans benefit consumers in the long term.

As TPA has reported, there is little to show that the regulations are necessary. The Title II rules, as previously implemented, prevented internet service providers from blocking, throttling or prioritizing data, but there was scant evidence that providers commonly engaged in such behavior before net neutrality was implemented. TPA, in a 2019 investigation, found few complaints of bad actions by providers after the rules were reversed.

Still, a net neutrality showdown at the FCC is expected. Sohn, a co-founder of left-leaning advocacy organization Public Knowledge and a Georgetown law fellow, served as a top aide for Wheeler during the Obama administration.

Protocol noted that after Sohn’s criticism of the FCC’s prior leadership for failing to institute net neutrality, she became the architect for the 2015 order that implemented the Title II regulations. This followed her work at Public Knowledge, a group that was among the earliest supporters of net neutrality. Protocol reported that Public Knowledge spent about $40 million in the decade before Title II’s implementation supporting the issue.