But State's rights are a Republica mantra. This will be presented as State oversight to protect universal, vaguely defined, services and the like. Everyone who thinks they matter are hustling to get on this panel, for then they will be more powerful than the Commissioners themselves. It will look balanced, with even one FCC Commissioner or two on two panel, somebody representing consumers, labor, etc., but since the GOP expects to win the next Presidential election, within 2-3 years it will be totally stacked. Of course, if the Democrats should ever win anything again, and the BOCs get into financial trouble, which is very likely given that the residential business has always been a dog, all the mechanisms for nationalisation of local carriage will be in place.
Power swings back and forth in Washington.
The message is that too much money has been spend on this deal for anyone to back out now. What can kill it is the State pre-emption clause. They are in terrible financial shape. A small portion of a large number is still a large number. So much for capping Federal spending.