Cruz Sets Nov. 10 Hearing for GOP FCC Nominee With No Democrat Paired, Weeks Before Senate Flips

Since Democrats won both chambers of Congress on Nov. 3, the clock has been running on a smaller fight with real consequences: who sits on the Federal Communications Commission.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, announced late Tuesday that Danielle Thumann Severs will get her confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 10:30 a.m. ET. Three other nominations are on the same agenda: one for the Department of Transportation and two for NASA.

Who Thumann Severs is

Thumann Severs is senior counsel to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. President Trump nominated her in August to a five-year term dating from July 1, 2024.

She would fill one of two seats left vacant in 2025 by the departures of Republican Nathan Simington and Democrat Geoffrey Starks. She would join Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty as a third Republican.

A hearing originally set for Sept. 17 was postponed after she gave birth days beforehand.

The Democratic seat

Commissioner Anna Gomez is the commission's only Democrat. Her term expired at the start of July, but her office has confirmed she can remain in her seat until the end of the next session of Congress, around January 2028, unless a successor is confirmed.

Trump has not nominated a Democrat for the other empty seat. He has also not renominated Gomez.

On Oct. 29, 21 House Energy and Commerce Democrats wrote to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Cruz asking that any new Republican nominee be paired with Gomez's renomination. "The commission functions as intended only when both parties have a seat at the table," they wrote. "Confirming an additional Republican nominee without also securing continued Democratic representation would upset that balance."

Civil-rights groups made a similar request to Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). Cruz declined, and the hearing is moving without a Democratic counterpart.

Pairing is tradition, not statute. Trusty was confirmed in June 2025 over Cantwell's objection that she had not been paired with a Democrat.

The quorum and legal fight

The Communications Act caps any one party at three of the FCC's five seats and requires three members for a quorum. A 3-1 commission would be legal.

The dispute is over what could come next. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote Gomez on Sept. 24 that "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."

Wyden argued that federal law prohibits an all-Republican FCC. "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," he wrote. He said any action by a partisan FCC "could be overturned in court, based on the statutory history of the Communications Act." His argument rests on the 1982 law that resized the commission.

Gomez has not endorsed or rejected that reading. Asked about the letter at last week's open meeting, she said she was still reviewing it but agreed "it is an open question."

No court has ruled on that question, and no one has announced plans to fire Gomez. Radio Ink notes that a June Supreme Court ruling allows the president to remove independent-agency commissioners without cause. Asked in June why Trump had not fired her, Gomez said: "I don't know, but I'm assuming the quorum is a good reason." A third Republican would change that quorum math.

Why the calendar matters

Republicans hold the Senate until January. After that, a Democratic majority would control what reaches the floor, and a Republican-only nomination would have a much harder path.

Cruz's office has not said when it expects a floor vote on Thumann Severs. A hearing on Nov. 10 would leave about two months for a committee vote and a full Senate vote.

Gomez issued a statement Wednesday calling on Congress to fill the empty seats in a bipartisan manner. "We must rebuild public trust in the FCC by returning the public interest standard to its original meaning as an obligation to communities rather than a tool for political pressure," she said.

Cruz himself has been blunt about the election results. On his podcast Wednesday he called Tuesday a "blue tsunami" and said Republicans lost both chambers. He has not publicly addressed the FCC pairing objections.

The open question is what happens after confirmation. If Thumann Severs is seated, the commission would have three Republicans and one Democrat. Gomez's holdover status would then be the only thing standing between that panel and the 3-0 outcome Wyden warns about, and Trump has not said what he intends to do about it.

The Nov. 10 hearing is the first test of whether Democrats on the committee can slow it.