---
title: "With Two Months Left in the Chair, Ted Cruz Moves to Tilt the FCC Further Republican"
description: "A Nov. 10 hearing for Danielle Thumann Severs could leave the commission with one Democrat, and perhaps, before long, none at all"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-11-04T19:08:23Z
modified: 2026-11-05T02:39:11Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/with-two-months-left-in-the-chair-ted-cruz-moves-to-tilt-the-21d255
language: en
tags: ["fcc", "politics", "trump", "senate", "regulation", "us"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# With Two Months Left in the Chair, Ted Cruz Moves to Tilt the FCC Further Republican

*A Nov. 10 hearing for Danielle Thumann Severs could leave the commission with one Democrat, and perhaps, before long, none at all*

By Jan Sokol · November 4, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/with-two-months-left-in-the-chair-ted-cruz-moves-to-tilt-the-21d255

## In brief

- Sen. Ted Cruz set a Nov. 10 Commerce Committee hearing for FCC nominee Danielle Thumann Severs, announcing it on Election Day
- Democrats take control of the Senate in January 2027, leaving Cruz two months as committee chairman
- Confirming Severs would give Republicans a 3-1 FCC majority, possibly 3-0 if Democrat Anna Gomez leaves at the end of 2027
- Trump has not nominated a Democrat to the vacant seat or renominated Gomez, breaking with long-standing custom
- Sen. Ron Wyden argues federal law bars an all-Republican FCC and that its actions could be void or overturned in court

Every government that loses an election gets a strange stretch of time between the verdict and the handover. The outgoing powers still hold the keys and know they will not hold them for long. In Washington this stretch is called the lame duck. One reading of it, offered here as reflection and not as fact: it is when the people leaving try hardest to arrange the rooms for whoever comes next.

On November 3, Election Day, as Republicans headed toward the midterm defeat that will hand Democrats control of the Senate in January 2027, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas made an announcement. Cruz chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, and he set a November 10 nomination hearing for Danielle Thumann Severs, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Federal Communications Commission. [As Jon Brodkin reported for Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/11/ted-cruz-aims-to-put-another-republican-on-fcc-in-senates-lame-duck-session/), Cruz has two months left with the gavel and appears determined to carry the nomination to a vote of the full Senate before he loses it.

The paperwork has been ready for some time. According to [Radio World](https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/business-and-law/hearing-scheduled-for-fcc-commissioner-thumann-severs-nomination), the hearing begins at 10:30 a.m. in Room SR-253, with three other nominations on the same agenda. It was first scheduled for September 17 and postponed after Severs had a child. Cruz chose the day the country was voting to announce the new date.

![A large navy gavel and hourglass hover above three red chairs and one cream chair on a yellow background.](https://rews.cc/img/56e873e4b8fdf8e71f5ae25d5c7d6dd5d18ae019.webp)

## The arithmetic of a commission

Severs is senior counsel to the FCC’s chairman, Brendan Carr. Trump nominated her in August for a five-year term counted from July 1, 2024, the seat that Republican commissioner Nathan Simington left. If she is confirmed she becomes the fourth sitting commissioner, and Republicans hold the agency three to one.

That ratio is unusual. It could get starker. Anna Gomez, the commission’s only Democrat, has been serving as a holdover since her term expired on June 30. Unless Trump renominates her, she will have to leave at the end of 2027. A three-to-one commission would then be three to zero.

Commissioners do not choose themselves. The president nominates each one and the Senate confirms them. By long custom, seats reserved for the party out of power are filled on the recommendation of that party’s Senate leaders. The custom carries no written guarantee, but it has kept the commission’s makeup within the law. In his second term Trump has dropped it. He has nominated no one for the commission’s other empty Democratic seat, and he has not renominated Gomez so she can serve past 2027.

## A quorum of three

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, has spelled out what he fears comes next. In a [letter dated September 24](https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/092526fcccommissionergomezletter.pdf) and addressed to Gomez herself, he wrote: “Because the Communications Act sets a quorum at three members, there is speculation that the President intends to fire you once \[Thumann Severs\] is confirmed, attempting to run the agency with an all-Republican 3-0 panel.”

![Three red microphones share a navy cable ending in a socket, facing a disconnected blue microphone plug on a yellow background, with broadcast waves above.](https://rews.cc/img/268d6d0828cbdb5c29624891cecc2ad072d36758.webp)

Wyden’s case is legal before it is political. He warned that federal law forbids an all-Republican FCC and that “any action taken by a partisan FCC could be overturned in court, based on the statutory history of the Communications Act.” As [Broadband Breakfast summarized](https://broadbandbreakfast.com/wyden-an-all-gop-fcc-would-be-unlawful/) the argument, he relies on a 1982 amendment that caps the number of commissioners from any one party at the smallest number that forms a majority of “the full membership of the Commission.” Wyden reads “full membership” as the number of commissioners actually seated. On that reading, a three-member commission can have no more than two from the same party. He also cites a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that the National Labor Relations Board could not use delegation to get around its statutory quorum. “So too for the FCC,” he wrote, adding: “I read the statute to prohibit an all-Republican commission; as such, any actions taken by such an FCC would be null and void.”

He then listed what would be at stake in ordinary business:

> Under an all-Republican commission, every single license renewal, equipment certification, spectrum transfer, or other delegated action would be legally defective, casting a cloud of crippling legal uncertainty over the entire communications industry.

![A red stamp handle sits above a black storm cloud, with rain marks surrounding a cream transmission tower standing on stacked sheets against a teal background.](https://rews.cc/img/baa80bef9eca59b97788a8bf33407dc1e4a76b9f.webp)

Gomez has not given the opinion he asked for. After the commission’s late-October meeting she told reporters she was still “reviewing” the letter, calling the matter “an open question,” while saying it was clear policymakers meant the FCC “to operate on a bipartisan basis,” [Communications Daily reported](https://communicationsdaily.com/article/2026/10/30/senate-commerce-likely-rescheduling-thumann-confirmation-hearing-for-nov-10-2610290056?BC=bc_6ae416a82513d).

## Letters into the void

Other Democrats have also tried writing letters. On October 29, 21 Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and to Cruz, [urging Senate Republicans](https://www.lightreading.com/regulatory-politics/house-democrats-demand-bipartisan-fcc-gomez-renomination) not to confirm another Republican commissioner without keeping Democratic representation on the commission, and asking that Gomez’s renomination move alongside Severs. Five days later Cruz set the hearing for Severs alone.

The two-party balance on independent commissions was built by people who expected power to change hands. A balanced FCC was a promise both parties made to each other, and in practice to every broadcaster, carrier and equipment maker that needs a licence or a ruling: whoever wins, the referee stays mixed. Wyden’s letter suggests that the promise only held as long as each side expected to lose someday and wanted protection when it did.

The election has now settled [the battle for the Senate](https://rews.cc/a/the-500-million-senate-race-that-may-decide-whether-trump-ke-eddcf1). The Democratic majority arrives in January, and a nominee who has not been confirmed by then will face a different committee chairman. The calendar is what Cruz is working against. November 10 falls one week after the vote, with the lame-duck weeks still ahead.