Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz is taking the Federal Communications Commission to task over its approval of the $6.2 billion merger between Nexstar Media Group and Tegna Inc., arguing the agency sidestepped proper procedure by failing to hold a full commission vote on one of the largest media consolidation deals in recent memory.
The merger was instead approved via delegated authority to the FCC's Media Bureau, a move Cruz views as an end-run around the commissioners who should have weighed in directly.
"I believe it should have been a full commission vote."
That one sentence from the chairman of the committee that oversees the FCC carries significant weight. And the implications of what happened here extend well beyond procedural gripes.
The merger, approved just over a week ago, didn't simply combine two broadcast companies, Newsmax noted. It included a waiver of the FCC's long-standing 39% national audience reach cap for broadcast station ownership, a limit that was made into law in 2004 for the express purpose of preventing any single entity from dominating the airwaves.
If the deal survives legal challenges, the combined company would own 260 TV stations across 44 states, creating the largest television broadcaster in the United States. That's not a modest expansion. That's a consolidation of enormous reach, waved through not by the full commission but by a bureau acting under delegated authority.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr has defended the agency's authority to waive ownership limits and has framed the decision as consistent with the FCC's broader deregulatory approach. Deregulation as a principle is sound. But waiving a statutory cap without a full commission vote is not deregulation. It's a delegation without accountability.
The courtroom response has been swift and broad. Multiple lawsuits have already been filed in federal court, including in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear argument on Thursday on whether to allow the merger to proceed while litigation continues.
Meanwhile, a separate but related lawsuit has been filed in federal court in California by a coalition of 18 state attorneys general, joined by DirecTV, seeking to block the merger outright. Six state cable associations have also raised objections. When state AGs, satellite providers, and cable associations all line up on the same side of a fight, the deal in question deserves more than a bureaucratic rubber stamp.
Critics contend the merger would hand one company unprecedented leverage over:
Industry groups have warned that the deal could lead to higher monthly bills for consumers and reduce viewpoint diversity and localism in broadcast media. Plaintiffs argue that a market dominated by two or three media conglomerates is not a market that serves the public interest.
There's a temptation to treat any deregulatory move as inherently conservative. It isn't. Conservatives have long understood that consolidation of power is a threat, whether it sits in a government agency or a corporate boardroom. The 39% cap exists because Congress recognized that a handful of companies controlling what most Americans see on local television is bad for competition, bad for consumers, and bad for the republic.
Waiving that cap through a bureau-level decision rather than a full commission vote compounds the problem. It removes the very layer of deliberation and accountability that makes regulatory decisions legitimate, even when those decisions move in a deregulatory direction. Process matters. If conservatives abandon that principle when the outcome seems favorable, they surrender the argument the next time a future Democratic FCC uses the same procedural shortcut to ram through something far worse.
The controversy over the waiver has been building for months. Cruz's public criticism signals that congressional oversight is not going to treat this as a settled matter simply because the bureau signed off.
Thursday's hearing before the D.C. Circuit panel will determine whether the merger can move forward while the legal challenges play out. That decision alone could shape the trajectory of the deal. If the court pauses the merger pending litigation, the combined legal pressure from 18 state attorneys general, DirecTV, cable associations, and procedural challenges could unravel the approval entirely.
Cruz's involvement from the Senate Commerce Committee adds a legislative dimension that the FCC cannot easily brush aside. Regulatory agencies act under the authority Congress grants them. When the chairman of the authorizing committee says you skipped a step, that's not commentary. It's a warning.
The FCC had every opportunity to bring this merger before the full commission, invite public scrutiny, and build a defensible record. It chose not to. Now it faces lawsuits from coast to coast, opposition from its own oversight committee, and a federal appeals court deciding whether the whole thing should be frozen in place.
That's what happens when you delegate a $6.2 billion decision to a bureau.
