A Democratic Federal Communications Commission is poised to restore net neutrality rules and move aggressively to expand broadband subsidies amid the pandemic, after Georgia’s runoff election gave Democrats control of the U.S. Senate.

The election results end fears that Senate Republicans would leave the five-member commission evenly split after GOP chairman Ajit Pai departs Jan. 20—and empower Democrats to embark on an ambitious communications policy agenda.

Restoring rules that banned internet service providers including AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. from blocking, throttling, or prioritizing certain internet traffic will be high among the Democrats’ goals, agency watchers said.

The commission will likely first move to reclassify broadband as a service under Title II of the Communications Act. That will allow it to restore rules requiring ISPs to treat all internet traffic equally, and take other actions to regulate broadband providers’ business practices amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Broadband providers could challenge the reclassification in court, as they did in 2015 after the Obama-era FCC enacted rules. The agency would likely prevail, given that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has deferred to it on how to classify broadband.

More at Bloomberg.