FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced that he will be stepping down from his position at the FCC on January 20th, 2017, the same day that President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Politico reports that Wheeler, the Democratic FCC chairman since 2013, stated that he would no longer continue his duties as FCC chairman in 2017.
“Serving as FCC Chairman during this period of historic technological change has been the greatest honor of my professional life,” said Wheeler in a statement. “It has been a privilege to work with my fellow commissioners to help protect consumers, strengthen public safety and cybersecurity, and ensure fast, fair and open networks for all Americans.”
It is often customary for sitting cabinet members to resign under a new administration, however Wheeler had for months refused to commit to stepping down.
Wheeler was well known for his habit of passing items through party line voting, which could see many regulations, such as net neutrality, revisited and possibly overturned under a new administration. Republican Senator John Thune previously had strong words for Wheeler at an FCC oversight hearing relating to the chairman’s partisan voting, saying, “Chairman Wheeler has forced 3-2 votes on party-line items a total of 25 times. To put that in perspective, in three years under Chairman Wheeler the FCC has seen nearly twice as many partisan votes than in the previous 20 years combined.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart Tech covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com