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Comment by rocky1138 | Hacker News Reader

Do the people in the USA elect the leader of the FCC? If so, can't they elect someone better? If not, why not?

The FCC is "ruled" by five people: two democrats, two republicans, and a chair. The president appoints the chair of the FCC and at any given point, there have to be at least two members of each of the two political parties on the FCC.

The the position(s) in the FCC are not elected, except indirectly by who you vote for as president.

(Please someone correct me if I'm wrong).

> each of the two political parties

What about all the other parties? Independents?

Edit: cnnsucks explained it more clearly:

> The commission may not have more than 3 members from the same political party.

Thanks, that makes sense.

The 5 commissioners of the FCC are appointed by the President of the United States. The commission may not have more than 3 members from the same political party. Effectively this means the FCC is dominated by the party of whomever is elected President.

Unfortunately no. The FCC Chairman is appointed by the President. Ajit Pai was appointed by Trump.

The chairman has to be approved by the Senate after being nominated by the President. But the Senate can't remove the chairman afterward, while the President can.

Edit: the commissioners including the chairman have five-year terms and have to be re-approved by the Senate for each term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss...

The Congress (specifically the Senate) has the power of impeachment against all civil officers of the U.S. Government. That would be any official not of the armed services.

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing...

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/civil+officer

This would include, for the sake of discussion, any hypothetical commissioner of the FCC.

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