Negotiations over the $4 trillion spending bill are consuming Washington, but President Biden’s effort to supercharge the regulatory state is also steadily advancing. The latest example is his nomination of progressive partisan Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission.

The White House last month hailed Ms. Sohn as “one of the nation’s leading public advocates for open, affordable, and democratic communications networks.” Translation: She favors deploying the agency’s regulatory power to shackle broadband providers...

Gigi Sohn in 2019.

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Negotiations over the $4 trillion spending bill are consuming Washington, but President Biden’s effort to supercharge the regulatory state is also steadily advancing. The latest example is his nomination of progressive partisan Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission.

The White House last month hailed Ms. Sohn as “one of the nation’s leading public advocates for open, affordable, and democratic communications networks.” Translation: She favors deploying the agency’s regulatory power to shackle broadband providers and silence conservative voices.

Ms. Sohn founded the leftwing group Public Knowledge that has long sought more government control of the internet and media. She was a counselor to Obama FCC Chair Tom Wheeler and was a driving force behind the “net neutrality” regulation that classified broadband providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.

The Wheeler rule banned broadband carriers from charging heavy-bandwidth consuming websites like Netflix and Facebook more to carry their content. The enormous regulatory uncertainty caused broadband investment to decline, though it picked up after the Trump FCC scrapped the rule. Ms. Sohn supports making the Wheeler rule even more burdensome.

“I’m not advocating for just reinstating the old rules,” Ms. Sohn told the media site CNET last year. “We need to push for FCC authority to adopt policy to handle issues like zero-rating and data caps.” Progressives want the government to regulate broadband rates like electricity prices, and Ms. Sohn’s musings suggest she’d be on board.

She’s also hinted at deploying the agency’s regulatory power to censor conservative media and revive a version of its mooted fairness doctrine. “For all my concerns about #Facebook, I believe that Fox News has had the most negative impact on our democracy,” she tweeted in October 2020. “It’s state-sponsored propaganda, with few if any opposing viewpoints.”

Ms. Sohn seems to believe that the state is endorsing conservative speech by allowing cable companies to carry it. She also has suggested using the FCC’s power over broadcast licenses to censor conservative outlets. After Tribune Broadcasting abandoned its merger with the conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group in 2018, she declared “Today is a good day for every American who believes that diversity of voices in the media is better for our democracy” and urged the FCC to “look at whether Sinclair is qualified to be a broadcast licensee at all.”

She could also use the agency’s power to block mergers that expand conservative media’s reach. Left-wing activists have petitioned the FCC to block the sale of a Spanish-language radio station in Miami to the conservative-leaning América CV Network, which Democratic Congress Members suggested in a letter to the agency wasn’t operating in the “public interest” and might have propagated election misinformation.

The FCC is currently split 2-2, and if Ms. Sohn is confirmed, Democrats will move quickly on the progressive agenda. Mr. Biden has also renominated Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel

to another term as agency Chair. A source says Biden Administration officials wanted to name Ms. Sohn as Chair but worried that moderate Democratic Senators would then reject her nomination.

Ms. Sohn’s strident partisanship should disqualify her from serving as an officer of an independent agency with so much power to control the public airwaves. There’s also a risk that the President could designate her as Chair after she’s confirmed, as he did with the radical Lina Khan on the Federal Trade Commission.

The Senate Commerce Committee plans to hold a confirmation hearing for Ms. Sohn next week, and Senators of both parties need to ask her some tough questions.

Potomac Watch: Rather than slow down and process election results in Virginia and New Jersey, the Democratic leadership is doubling-down on its $3-trillion spending spree, perhaps fearing that if they lose momentum now, it’s game over. Image: AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition