
We made it to the 10th public commission meeting. Now, one person who didn’t make it to the meeting today (or at least did not appear on the main screen) was Alvaro Bedoya. We had heard that his confirmation vote to become the fifth commissioner was going to happen this week, but apparently a few high-profile COVID-19 cases caused a delay in his vote. Because of a partisan divide on his nomination, his vote was likely going to require a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Harris.
The surprise portion of the meeting was brought to you by the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), which is a broad rule that regulates what telemarketers can and cannot do with respect to contacting consumers and also sets payment restrictions for the sale of goods and services made through telemarketing calls. As important background, the TSR generally just addresses calls that companies make to consumers, not business-to-business (B2B) calls (though there are a few substantive areas where B2B calls are also covered). And for those unfamiliar with AMG, it is a Supreme Court decision from April 2021 that dramatically limited the ability of the FTC to get equitable monetary relief in federal court. We have discussed it a lot here, but lately, new FTC leadership hasn’t said all that much about it.