Senate Will Vote Wednesday To Try And Save Net Neutrality
from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept
While U.S. net neutrality protections technically end on June 11, efforts to restore the rules continue. On Wednesday the Senate is now formally scheduled to hold a vote to try and use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse the FCC repeal. The CRA can reverse a regulatory action with a majority vote in the House and Senate; it's what the GOP and Trump administration used to kill popular broadband privacy rules before they could take effect last year.
In a Statement, Senator Ed Markey called the May 16 vote the "most important vote for the internet in the history of the Senate":
"By passing my CRA resolution to put net neutrality back on the books, we can send a clear message to American families that we support them, not the special interest agenda of President Trump and his broadband baron allies. May 16 will be the most important vote for the internet in the history of the Senate, and I call on my Republicans colleagues to join this movement and stand on the right side of digital history."
It's believed that net neutrality supporters should have the votes they need to get the CRA effort through the Senate. Getting time and the necessary votes in the House, where ISP influence is more pervasive, is likely to be a taller order. And even if the measure makes its way through the House, Trump still has the ability to veto it. Net neutrality supporters believe that if they get that far they may be able to pander to Trump's "populist" side given the immense public support for net neutrality.
While stranger things have happened, that seems like a tall order for a President who has routinely indicated he has absolutely no earthly idea what net neutrality even is. And when Trump does talk about it, he clings tightly to the misleading narratives that have been pushed for years in certain media echo chambers thanks to the help of ISP lobbyists:
Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2014
Still, the CRA route does have the benefit of forcing net neutrality opponents to put their disdain for the internet and the will of the public down on paper ahead of the looming midterms. Given that 82% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats oppose the FCC's obnoxiously-named "restoring internet freedom" repeal, naming and shaming does serve a tactical purpose. After all, as we've routinely noted, there's absolutely nothing partisan about keeping the internet healthy, competitive, and free from arbitrary barriers anti-competitively erected by giant telecom monopolies.
That said, the best bet to reverse the FCC's attack on net neutrality rests with the courts. Or as Tim Wu, the man who coined the term net neutrality, recently put it:
"The problem for Mr. Pai is that government agencies are not free to abruptly reverse longstanding rules on which many have relied without a good reason, such as a change in factual circumstances. A mere change in F.C.C. ideology isn’t enough. As the Supreme Court has said, a federal agency must “examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action.” Given that net neutrality rules have been a huge success by most measures, the justification for killing them would have to be very strong.
It isn’t. In fact, it’s very weak."
Numerous lawsuits should heat up over the next few months highlighting how the FCC ignored the public and engaged in all manner of dodgy behavior to rush the repeal through. Should that fail, the best recourse for angry consumers is voting out lawmakers that prioritize monopoly profits over the health of the internet, and the welfare of consumers, startups, and small businesses. And the looming CRA vote, even if it fails, should make it much easier to clearly target those lawmakers in the voting booth during the midterms and beyond.
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Filed Under: broadband, congress, congressional review act, cra, fcc, net neutrality, senate, vote
Reader Comments
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Popular Opinion Matters to Trump...
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Re: Popular Opinion Matters to Trump...
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Yeah, that's the way the Presidency has worked for a long time now. Obama was the anti-Bush. Bush was the anti-Clinton. Clinton was the anti-Bush Sr. And each one has been worse than the last.
Seems to me it will only stop when we elect someone for who they are instead of who they're not.
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I think Clinton and Obama were very much elected for who they were: specifically, they were extremely charismatic and inspiring speakers.
I think the same is true of George W Bush, to a lesser extent; people who supported him considered him to be a plainspoken straight-shooter.
Certainly dissatisfaction with the previous administration also played a role in electing each of them, but it's extremely reductive to say that's all they were elected for.
I also think there's a very good criticism to be made that voters tend, too often, to choose style over substance; when I say that Clinton and Obama got elected because of charisma and speaking ability, I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing.
I do think that Trump, more than other past presidents, is fixating on undoing things that Obama did because Obama did them. Certainly Clinton undid things Bush did, and Bush undid things Clinton did, and Obama undid things Bush did, but I believe in all those cases it was due to a genuine ideological disagreement with the previous administration. In Trump's case, it often feels more like pettiness and spite.
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It's not like you guys know anything about anything so why not perpetuate this argument?
It's NOT that Obama did them, it is that a "Democrat" did them. Remember when Regan brought gun control law into existence and how many republicans supported it and to this day hold Regan in high regard?
You folks only bring up Obama because of your race fixation. If Bush was a democrat and did the same thing, they would hate it just as much. Much the same way all of you Democrats keep thinking how your democratic leaders keep telling you how to think. If Obama was a Republican, then the Republicans would be rubbing your faces in it and you all would be calling Obama an Uncle Tom and spouting off how the minority communities suffer more under Obama.
The sad thing is... you have already lost and don't even have the intelligence to figure out how or why.
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Last Stands!
Ps – its starting to feel a little phony when you guys profess to believe that what the American people want has anything to do with policy or legislation
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Re: Last Stands!
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If that's the best option then we're all in trouble. Politicians "stand" for more than just one thing. For most of the public who still don't really understand what Net Neutrality is or how it might impact them they will deprioritize NN against other platform tenets on election day. A politician who voted against NN might also be in favor of pro-life or pro-choice and so they get the vote anyway.
Basically we're all screwed with the current system whether we know it or not.
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Read the News
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ISPs are not the Internet.
Net neutrality does not allow the government to control the flow of information on the Internet. It prevents ISPs from controlling the flow of information on the Internet.
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Because 'Net Neutrality' is really 'No Charging Different Prices For The Same Product To Manipulate The Free Market'. And those rules are things we already have for other utilities like Electric and Water.
The water company is barred by law from charging a different rate for watering your lawn with 100 gallons of water versus consuming 100 gallons of water in the shower.
The electric company is barred by law from not charging you for electricity that Maytag appliances use, while charging double the regular rate for all electricity that non-Maytag appliances use.
Those kinds of charging rules that are banned for good reason would manipulate the market. In the water company's case it would be attempting to discourage people from caring for their lawns (which would hurt the landscaping industry). In the electric company example it would stop the electric company from handing the home appliance market to whoever they want via the offer of free electricity.
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The ONLY thing that swing elections is the groups of voters that still care but are too stupid to understand.
Meanwhile those that do care and know how to solve the problem can only sit back and watch the rest of you idiots keep fucking stuff up and go after each other like good little minions being ordered by their Political Churches.
Whether NN gets reinstated or not you silly clueless idiots are still going to get fucked by the monopolies that your actions are ensuring the survival of while simultaneously paying lip service to the opposite.
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So what you're saying is you like to complain and do a lot of arm chair quarterbacking but you actually can't be bothered to actually do something to help change the situation.
Got it. Moving on.
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Fuck me, but you're boring. I'd rather watch paint dry in hopes of discovering intelligent life forms. Odds are they'd be smarter than you.
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A "huge defeat" isn't really possible in the Senate; if the Democrats hold all their seats and manage to pick up the two they need for a bare majority, that will exceed expectations. If they manage to pick up more than that (say, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and Tennessee), that's going to be about as big a victory as they can get with this particular Senate map.
The Dems are slightly favored to win the House, and if they outperform expectations then it's a lot more room for a significant victory margin there. (And of course there are state and local offices to consider, not just the US Congress.)
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State polls are less reliable than national ones, and can have considerable variation; for example, in Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn has polled anywhere from down 10 points to only down 5 points.
Nationally, Democrats have consistently polled 6-8% ahead of Republicans, so that implies an overall advantage, and they've also consistently done well in special elections. But what that translates to in November is harder to gauge. It's likely they'll take the House, but it's not certain, and if they do, their majority may be slim or it may be large. The president's party typically loses seats in midterms, and this president is particularly unpopular -- but there's also still quite a lot of gerrymandering to contend with. Some states' gerrymandered district maps have been thrown out (like Pennsylvania's), but Supreme Court rulings are still pending on several more, and however the court rules, it's unlikely new maps will take effect before November.
As for the Senate, the Democrats did particularly well there in 2012, which puts them at a disadvantage now that those seats are back up in 2018; it's very hard for them to gain ground. Of the 33 seats up in November, only 9 are held by Republicans. Nevada and Arizona are definitely in play, and even Tennessee and Texas are possible pickups, which is crazy, but there are challenges, too; there are Democratic seats in very Trump-friendly states (like Manchin in WV), and even if the Dems gain some Republican seats, it's likely that Republicans will gain some Democratic seats too.
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Net Neutrality and Arizona Republic Newspaper
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(* 85% - paraphrasing the statement 82% Republicans and 90% Democrats.)
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Heart of Gold
I think he due to a name change. How about - say - Zaphod?
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It's "which," not "what," if you're talking about a quantitative measurement.
No one cares about minor errors like this but it reveals how dumbed down we are when even our "journalists" can't get it right.
Maybe the SAT Test can fix this by including more questions about the HIV virus or ATM machines.
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