14 ms·

Net Neutrality to Get U.S. Senate Vote as Democrats Force Issue

343 points by rayuela 9y ago

lurr 9y ago
Good, force people to put their name behind an issue.
- chriscappuccio 9y ago
  what is your NN position, Mr. Lurr?
  - lurr 9y ago
    I am pro net neutrality and unwilling to reveal my real name. I'm also not an elected representative of the people.
- zeep 9y ago
  That should ensure an easy win for Oprah in 2020...
elihu 9y ago
Would a CRA force a House vote as well? (The House has another procedure called a discharge petition to force votes on things that are supported by a majority of representatives but opposed by a majority of the majority party -- it seems unlikely that there are enough votes in the House to force a net neutrality vote, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition)
- grzm 9y ago
  > "Would a CRA force a House vote as well?" According to the article, it appears that the call for CRA will: > "Democratic senators have collected enough support to force a vote to block the changes from taking effect." ... > "To take effect, the CRA would need majority votes in both houses, in addition to sign-off from the president." It's not clear to me if the Senate would vote first, and, if the vote fails, whether the House would also be required to vote.
- edaemon 9y ago
  It only goes to the House if the CRA resolution passes the Senate. CRA resolutions function just like other resolutions or bills, being introduced and voted on in one house and approved via vote in the other.
JoshuaEN 9y ago
This vote seems like the best chance of maintaining NN at the national level. Congress ultimately directly serve at the pleasure of their constituents, unlike the FCC commissioners. Point being, the time leading up to this vote is probably be the best time to let your congress members know your opinion on NN. Do not let the "failure"[1] of previous efforts to get congress to act in defense of NN dissuade you from future action, particularly now: It is far easier for a politician to take no action (as they could when the FCC was ones doing the voting) than to actively vote against the wishes of their constituents. --- [1] Failure in scare quotes since it seems likely part of the reason NN is still a topic being actively fought for in congress, in the courts, and at a state level is because there is a large amount of vocal support for it.
- Kequc 9y ago
  Why don't Democrats pass NN through congress and get it enshrined into law? Instead of trying to block that from happening, since it's Republicans who are trying to do that. Why was NN so easy to repeal in the first place? Why didn't Obama do a proper job if it's such an important issue? I still don't agree with the accepted wisdom about what NN is in the first place. Seems to me to suggest companies that are using up a lot of bandwidth are going to start paying more, competitors are going to start paying less. Which is why every single large company is opposed to the change.
  - lukeschlather 9y ago
    No. Companies that are using lots of bandwidth will get bulk rates, or negotiate sweetheart zero-rating deals. Upstart companies with spikes in usage may be killed because they can't get the bandwidth they need at the same low rates the incumbent players get.
  - landryraccoon 9y ago
    > Why didn't Obama do a proper job if it's such an important issue? To be clear, you're trying to blame Obama for something the Republican controlled Congress was responsible for? Obama wasn't a dictator; Congress decides what laws to pass and Congress wasn't exactly in favor of just about anything Obama wanted to do. Also I think you're misunderstanding what Net Neutrality is about. Net Neutrality doesn't say that everyone pays the same regardless of what bandwidth they use - ISPs are free to charge more for more bandwidth usage. Net Neutrality says that ISPs can't rate discriminate based on the type of data shared. NN means that Comcast can't charge more for packets coming from foxnews.com as opposed to msnbc.com, but it doesn't say that they can't charge an end user that uses 5 GB more than one that uses 1 GB.
draw_down 9y ago
So they’ll lose in Congress instead. Lovely.
jnordwick 9y ago
Title II was never meant to be a good solution to net neutrality. It was used because it was the only level that the FCC had. Congress can actually craft internet specific legislation and should. It seems like Title II has become the end game for many because of pure politics, not because it is a good solution. Remember, parts of Title II had to be ignored to get this square peg to fit. No, don't vote for this. Develop an actual, specific policy if that is what you want. I fear that after Title II is enacted it would be very difficult to move to better policy in the future.
- FreakyT 9y ago
  Seems to me that some of the "ignored" parts of Title II would have nonetheless benefitted consumers. Personally, I would love to see last loop unbundling for broadband.
  - chriscappuccio 9y ago
    It's amazing for me to watch the tech community go from the hands off libertarian attitude to full socialist over this issue.
    - pdonis 9y ago
      This reaction only makes sense if the situation without Net Neutrality regulation by the FCC is a reasonable approximation to a free market. It isn't. There is already a massive amount of regulation in this sector; it just mostly isn't regulation by the FCC. The big ISPs have cut sweetheart deals with state and local governments for monopoly access to particular areas; and when particular municipalities try to go around that by, for example, building out municipal broadband to be rented out to all comers at market rates, the ISPs have sued them and mostly won. Net Neutrality regulation by the FCC is certainly not an optimal situation; it's trying to make the best of a highly suboptimal situation because there is no feasible path to an optimal situation.
- pdabbadabba 9y ago
  A good idea, in theory. But, in practice, this would require many more votes, and cooperation from Republican leadership in both houses of congress to develop a bill and get it out of committee and survive the likely filibuster. The CRA route (restoring Title II classification) may not be perfect, but it's the only remotely viable strategy on Capitol Hill. (And it's still a long shot, at best.)
anfedorov 9y ago
What's a good resource for understanding broadband markets as a whole? At least in SF in the past 5 years, Comcast seems to have upgraded 100Mbps connections to 1Gbps connections. Not sure whether that translates to a bigger shared pipe for the city as a whole, but it certainly looks like a good amount of improvement in $:bits, at least in comparison with $:sqFt.
- pfooti 9y ago
  I'd bet that at least part of that is in response to competition on the ground. Monkeybrains and Sonic (disclosure: long time sonic customer) both are bringing high-speed broadband to SF. In particular, I have symmetric gigabit for like $50 a month.
  - chrischen 9y ago
    I have 15 down 0.5 mbps up sonic for $70...
    - quadyeast 9y ago
      I have 3 mb/s down sonic for $68. It comes bundled with a phone line that I do not need. They charge me $10 extra because they are trying to improve the network elsewhere.
      - smsm42 9y ago
        I've used Sonic. They advertised $40/m (still do) but it turned out that plus additional $10 just because, plus hw rental fees, plus taxes on the phone service I don't need and can't get rid of. All summarily $65. Plus they use AT&T infrastructure, which also conveniently makes it impossible to switch from them to regular AT&T without cancelling the service completely (thus cutting off internet) and ordering a brand new install, since AT&T software can't handle it otherwise (they don't have option to move same service to different billing engine). Plus they told me I have to cancel a month in advance (and pay for the extra month even if I already have another service). So, I'm no longer using Sonic.
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
IIRC, the FCC commissioner's (stated) argument against net neutrality was that it was Congress's job to legislate things like that, not the FCC's job to just write regulations to make it so. Arguably, it's a defensible point. Note well: I take no position on whether this was his actual reason, or just a smoke screen.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  This is what overturned net neutrality in 2014, and possibly would have overturned it again without the current administration. The FCC states their right to regulate the issue comes from one incredibly vague line in a 96 act, that they are to “encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans."
mehrdadn 9y ago
This is risky. If lack of net neutrality regulation doesn't result in clearly-out-of-bounds behavior by ISPs in the near term, Democrats will be the ones looking bad for trying to add useless regulation. I hope they've thought this scenario through.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  The people who care about "useless regulation" are already anti-Net Neutrality, so you might as well count them out. It's important to fight for the things that matter to us.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  The ISP bad behavior has already been going on for years and is now hitting a high-pitched fervor now that the FCC has repealed net neutrality. I don't see how it's risky; the bad behavior is already there and regulation is sorely needed.
  - chriscappuccio 9y ago
    It is risky because you are wrong; nothing is hitting any fervor at all. What are you referring to?
  - ikeboy 9y ago
    This would benefit strongly from examples.
- wmeredith 9y ago
  The ISPs have already been caught red-handed throttling/shaping traffic to fit their business goals over and over. Comcast was blocking bitorrent traffic in 2008. 1 Verizon blocked tethering apps in 2008. 1 AT&T blocked FaceTime in 2012. 1 Comcast imposed data caps for all streaming services except their own offered through xBox live in 2008. 1 Comcast currently exempts its own Stream TV service from data caps. 2 1. https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/net-neutrality-violations-history/ https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/net-neutrality-violations-hi... 2. http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-News/Comcast-Hit-With-FCC-Complaint-Over-Net-Neutrality-Violations-109609.aspx http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-New... I dug that up by googling for 5 minutes.
temp-dude-87844 9y ago
This vote is an important device that serves to decouple net neutrality as a distinct political issue, rather than a footnote in a particular politician's larger platform which -- to many voters -- isn't as important as some other hot-button stances to merit single-issue voting. By triggering a senate vote, this gives an opportunity for each senator to make their stance on this a matter of official record, theoretically independent from any other affiliation they might hold. With the FCC's latest ruling opposed by a majority of liberal and conservatives alike, this is an opportunity to stand with their constituents. The other objective of those who brought the vote is to illustrate just how few, if any, of those on the other side will vote to oppose the FCC's new rules. This can be weaponized on the ground in later elections, especially competitive districts -- or in this case, states.
- smsm42 9y ago
  Where the idea that FCC latest ruling is opposed by majority of conservatives comes from? Moreover, if you think issue as obscure and technical as NN would be important enough for a senator to break with their own party, you are deluding yourself. The only way to make it so is to wage blatantly false campaign like "without NN you'd be paying 100x for Internet tomorrow and all your favorite sites would be blocked" - which is also kinda too late anyway, because we already know it's not true. Hoping that the average voter can appreciate the fine points of the tug of war between backbone providers and content generators is, as I said, delusional.
  - lukeschlather 9y ago
    We have a monopoly problem with Comcast, etc. so this isn't that complicated. It's an oversimplification to say that net neutrality is going to solve that problem, but I don't think it's an oversimplification to say that people against NN are against solving the problem, and I think most people get that intuitively, even if they don't get the details.
    - smsm42 9y ago
      > but I don't think it's an oversimplification to say that people against NN are against solving the problem You think wrong. Actually, there's three levels of wrong here. 1. Not everybody thinks that government regulations are the best way to solve the problems, especially ones largely created by government regulations. 2. Not everybody thinks that this particular way of regulations that Obama's FCC took is the best way to solve the problem. 3. If people disagree with you about particular way of solving the problem, it doesn't mean they are for not solving the problem. And, of course, most of the population wouldn't change their vote for Senator because of such niche issue, especially if the best argument here is "Comcast is the monopoly, NN wouldn't solve it but if you don't vote for NN it would be bad".
lmroz 9y ago
The U.S. Senate voted on an older version of net neutrality in 2011 with a resolution introduced by former republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (a resolution of disapproval of the FCC's Open Internet Order of 2010). It was a party line vote, 48-52, with republicans (the minority caucus in the Senate at that time) voting against the order and democrats voting in support of the order. https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/6/all-actions https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-joint-re... Also in 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives had a disapproval vote which passed 240-179, since republicans were in the majority at that time. All but 2 republicans voted to disapprove the FCC order, while all but 6 democrats voted in support of the order. https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-joint-resolution/37/all-actions https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-joint-res...
- taurath 9y ago
  So put another way, whichever party in power is against net neutrality, and whichever isn’t is for it?
  - lmroz 9y ago
    No - republicans in both chambers voted against net neutrality, and democrats in both chambers voted for net neutrality. The resolution of disapproval of net neutrality only passed in the House because there was a republican majority in the House at that time. It failed in the Senate because there was a democrat majority in the Senate at that time.
- danjayh 9y ago
  The problem isn't net neutrality, it's lack of competition among ISPs. Normally, I would agree with them - regulating the internet is not the way to spur innovation. But with an ISP monopoly or duopoly in most markets, either more competition (my preferred solution) or regulation is needed. As we've seen with phone service (if you're old enough to remember), regulation will give us reliable but expensive service, and competition will give us cheap, reliable, and feature-filled service.
jjawssd 9y ago
Bernie did it right. There is no reason for the government to force net neutrality if instead the government focused on maintaining a competitive ISP landscape.
1024core 9y ago
What I don't understand is: why did it take so much effort to get to 30 supporters, when Democrats have 48 in the Senate? What are the other 18 Democratic Senators doing? Why are they not fully behind NN?
- notadoc 9y ago
  Follow the money. I suspect you will find the answers to your questions here: https://www.opensecrets.org/influence/ https://www.opensecrets.org/influence/ https://www.opensecrets.org/elections/ https://www.opensecrets.org/elections/
- al3xnull 9y ago
  Careful, don't want any of those senators to step out of line over there. I hear dissent is treated with lashing and in-party sabotage.
notadoc 9y ago
Why net neutrality has turned into a partisan issue is beyond me, but in this era seemingly everything must be politicized as part of a divide and conquer strategy. I suspect the best hope for net neutrality is for states to adopt it themselves at the state level.
- bruno22237 9y ago
  It became a partisan issue immediately, as we have one party that is really against regulation. why wouldn't a conservative/libertarian party feel this way? Dems should run on it, win and sign it into law for good!
colanderman 9y ago
If your senator(s) are on this list [1] write them to THANK them for stepping up to do so. (And if they're not, write them to request that they do so!) [1] https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/status/950498741366247424 https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/status/950498741366247424
beedogs 9y ago
As usual, Democrats are the only party that gives a damn. Really baffling why anyone younger than me votes for anyone else.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

343 points by rayuela 9y ago

lurr 9y ago

Good, force people to put their name behind an issue.

chriscappuccio 9y ago
what is your NN position, Mr. Lurr?
- lurr 9y ago
  I am pro net neutrality and unwilling to reveal my real name. I'm also not an elected representative of the people.
zeep 9y ago
That should ensure an easy win for Oprah in 2020...

elihu 9y ago

Would a CRA force a House vote as well? (The House has another procedure called a discharge petition to force votes on things that are supported by a majority of representatives but opposed by a majority of the majority party -- it seems unlikely that there are enough votes in the House to force a net neutrality vote, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition)

grzm 9y ago
> "Would a CRA force a House vote as well?" According to the article, it appears that the call for CRA will: > "Democratic senators have collected enough support to force a vote to block the changes from taking effect." ... > "To take effect, the CRA would need majority votes in both houses, in addition to sign-off from the president." It's not clear to me if the Senate would vote first, and, if the vote fails, whether the House would also be required to vote.
edaemon 9y ago
It only goes to the House if the CRA resolution passes the Senate. CRA resolutions function just like other resolutions or bills, being introduced and voted on in one house and approved via vote in the other.

JoshuaEN 9y ago

This vote seems like the best chance of maintaining NN at the national level. Congress ultimately directly serve at the pleasure of their constituents, unlike the FCC commissioners. Point being, the time leading up to this vote is probably be the best time to let your congress members know your opinion on NN. Do not let the "failure"[1] of previous efforts to get congress to act in defense of NN dissuade you from future action, particularly now: It is far easier for a politician to take no action (as they could when the FCC was ones doing the voting) than to actively vote against the wishes of their constituents. --- [1] Failure in scare quotes since it seems likely part of the reason NN is still a topic being actively fought for in congress, in the courts, and at a state level is because there is a large amount of vocal support for it.

Kequc 9y ago
Why don't Democrats pass NN through congress and get it enshrined into law? Instead of trying to block that from happening, since it's Republicans who are trying to do that. Why was NN so easy to repeal in the first place? Why didn't Obama do a proper job if it's such an important issue? I still don't agree with the accepted wisdom about what NN is in the first place. Seems to me to suggest companies that are using up a lot of bandwidth are going to start paying more, competitors are going to start paying less. Which is why every single large company is opposed to the change.
- lukeschlather 9y ago
  No. Companies that are using lots of bandwidth will get bulk rates, or negotiate sweetheart zero-rating deals. Upstart companies with spikes in usage may be killed because they can't get the bandwidth they need at the same low rates the incumbent players get.
- landryraccoon 9y ago
  > Why didn't Obama do a proper job if it's such an important issue? To be clear, you're trying to blame Obama for something the Republican controlled Congress was responsible for? Obama wasn't a dictator; Congress decides what laws to pass and Congress wasn't exactly in favor of just about anything Obama wanted to do. Also I think you're misunderstanding what Net Neutrality is about. Net Neutrality doesn't say that everyone pays the same regardless of what bandwidth they use - ISPs are free to charge more for more bandwidth usage. Net Neutrality says that ISPs can't rate discriminate based on the type of data shared. NN means that Comcast can't charge more for packets coming from foxnews.com as opposed to msnbc.com, but it doesn't say that they can't charge an end user that uses 5 GB more than one that uses 1 GB.

draw_down 9y ago

So they’ll lose in Congress instead. Lovely.

jnordwick 9y ago

Title II was never meant to be a good solution to net neutrality. It was used because it was the only level that the FCC had. Congress can actually craft internet specific legislation and should. It seems like Title II has become the end game for many because of pure politics, not because it is a good solution. Remember, parts of Title II had to be ignored to get this square peg to fit. No, don't vote for this. Develop an actual, specific policy if that is what you want. I fear that after Title II is enacted it would be very difficult to move to better policy in the future.

FreakyT 9y ago
Seems to me that some of the "ignored" parts of Title II would have nonetheless benefitted consumers. Personally, I would love to see last loop unbundling for broadband.
- chriscappuccio 9y ago
  It's amazing for me to watch the tech community go from the hands off libertarian attitude to full socialist over this issue.
  - pdonis 9y ago
    This reaction only makes sense if the situation without Net Neutrality regulation by the FCC is a reasonable approximation to a free market. It isn't. There is already a massive amount of regulation in this sector; it just mostly isn't regulation by the FCC. The big ISPs have cut sweetheart deals with state and local governments for monopoly access to particular areas; and when particular municipalities try to go around that by, for example, building out municipal broadband to be rented out to all comers at market rates, the ISPs have sued them and mostly won. Net Neutrality regulation by the FCC is certainly not an optimal situation; it's trying to make the best of a highly suboptimal situation because there is no feasible path to an optimal situation.
pdabbadabba 9y ago
A good idea, in theory. But, in practice, this would require many more votes, and cooperation from Republican leadership in both houses of congress to develop a bill and get it out of committee and survive the likely filibuster. The CRA route (restoring Title II classification) may not be perfect, but it's the only remotely viable strategy on Capitol Hill. (And it's still a long shot, at best.)

anfedorov 9y ago

What's a good resource for understanding broadband markets as a whole? At least in SF in the past 5 years, Comcast seems to have upgraded 100Mbps connections to 1Gbps connections. Not sure whether that translates to a bigger shared pipe for the city as a whole, but it certainly looks like a good amount of improvement in $:bits, at least in comparison with $:sqFt.

pfooti 9y ago
I'd bet that at least part of that is in response to competition on the ground. Monkeybrains and Sonic (disclosure: long time sonic customer) both are bringing high-speed broadband to SF. In particular, I have symmetric gigabit for like $50 a month.
- chrischen 9y ago
  I have 15 down 0.5 mbps up sonic for $70...
  - quadyeast 9y ago
    I have 3 mb/s down sonic for $68. It comes bundled with a phone line that I do not need. They charge me $10 extra because they are trying to improve the network elsewhere.
    - smsm42 9y ago
      I've used Sonic. They advertised $40/m (still do) but it turned out that plus additional $10 just because, plus hw rental fees, plus taxes on the phone service I don't need and can't get rid of. All summarily $65. Plus they use AT&T infrastructure, which also conveniently makes it impossible to switch from them to regular AT&T without cancelling the service completely (thus cutting off internet) and ordering a brand new install, since AT&T software can't handle it otherwise (they don't have option to move same service to different billing engine). Plus they told me I have to cancel a month in advance (and pay for the extra month even if I already have another service). So, I'm no longer using Sonic.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

IIRC, the FCC commissioner's (stated) argument against net neutrality was that it was Congress's job to legislate things like that, not the FCC's job to just write regulations to make it so. Arguably, it's a defensible point. Note well: I take no position on whether this was his actual reason, or just a smoke screen.

boomboomsubban 9y ago
This is what overturned net neutrality in 2014, and possibly would have overturned it again without the current administration. The FCC states their right to regulate the issue comes from one incredibly vague line in a 96 act, that they are to “encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans."

mehrdadn 9y ago

This is risky. If lack of net neutrality regulation doesn't result in clearly-out-of-bounds behavior by ISPs in the near term, Democrats will be the ones looking bad for trying to add useless regulation. I hope they've thought this scenario through.

wavefunction 9y ago
The people who care about "useless regulation" are already anti-Net Neutrality, so you might as well count them out. It's important to fight for the things that matter to us.
CydeWeys 9y ago
The ISP bad behavior has already been going on for years and is now hitting a high-pitched fervor now that the FCC has repealed net neutrality. I don't see how it's risky; the bad behavior is already there and regulation is sorely needed.
- chriscappuccio 9y ago
  It is risky because you are wrong; nothing is hitting any fervor at all. What are you referring to?
- ikeboy 9y ago
  This would benefit strongly from examples.
wmeredith 9y ago
The ISPs have already been caught red-handed throttling/shaping traffic to fit their business goals over and over. Comcast was blocking bitorrent traffic in 2008. 1 Verizon blocked tethering apps in 2008. 1 AT&T blocked FaceTime in 2012. 1 Comcast imposed data caps for all streaming services except their own offered through xBox live in 2008. 1 Comcast currently exempts its own Stream TV service from data caps. 2 1. https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/net-neutrality-violations-history/ https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/net-neutrality-violations-hi... 2. http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-News/Comcast-Hit-With-FCC-Complaint-Over-Net-Neutrality-Violations-109609.aspx http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-New... I dug that up by googling for 5 minutes.

temp-dude-87844 9y ago

This vote is an important device that serves to decouple net neutrality as a distinct political issue, rather than a footnote in a particular politician's larger platform which -- to many voters -- isn't as important as some other hot-button stances to merit single-issue voting. By triggering a senate vote, this gives an opportunity for each senator to make their stance on this a matter of official record, theoretically independent from any other affiliation they might hold. With the FCC's latest ruling opposed by a majority of liberal and conservatives alike, this is an opportunity to stand with their constituents. The other objective of those who brought the vote is to illustrate just how few, if any, of those on the other side will vote to oppose the FCC's new rules. This can be weaponized on the ground in later elections, especially competitive districts -- or in this case, states.

smsm42 9y ago
Where the idea that FCC latest ruling is opposed by majority of conservatives comes from? Moreover, if you think issue as obscure and technical as NN would be important enough for a senator to break with their own party, you are deluding yourself. The only way to make it so is to wage blatantly false campaign like "without NN you'd be paying 100x for Internet tomorrow and all your favorite sites would be blocked" - which is also kinda too late anyway, because we already know it's not true. Hoping that the average voter can appreciate the fine points of the tug of war between backbone providers and content generators is, as I said, delusional.
- lukeschlather 9y ago
  We have a monopoly problem with Comcast, etc. so this isn't that complicated. It's an oversimplification to say that net neutrality is going to solve that problem, but I don't think it's an oversimplification to say that people against NN are against solving the problem, and I think most people get that intuitively, even if they don't get the details.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    > but I don't think it's an oversimplification to say that people against NN are against solving the problem You think wrong. Actually, there's three levels of wrong here. 1. Not everybody thinks that government regulations are the best way to solve the problems, especially ones largely created by government regulations. 2. Not everybody thinks that this particular way of regulations that Obama's FCC took is the best way to solve the problem. 3. If people disagree with you about particular way of solving the problem, it doesn't mean they are for not solving the problem. And, of course, most of the population wouldn't change their vote for Senator because of such niche issue, especially if the best argument here is "Comcast is the monopoly, NN wouldn't solve it but if you don't vote for NN it would be bad".

lmroz 9y ago

The U.S. Senate voted on an older version of net neutrality in 2011 with a resolution introduced by former republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (a resolution of disapproval of the FCC's Open Internet Order of 2010). It was a party line vote, 48-52, with republicans (the minority caucus in the Senate at that time) voting against the order and democrats voting in support of the order. https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/6/all-actions https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-joint-re... Also in 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives had a disapproval vote which passed 240-179, since republicans were in the majority at that time. All but 2 republicans voted to disapprove the FCC order, while all but 6 democrats voted in support of the order. https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-joint-resolution/37/all-actions https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-joint-res...

taurath 9y ago
So put another way, whichever party in power is against net neutrality, and whichever isn’t is for it?
- lmroz 9y ago
  No - republicans in both chambers voted against net neutrality, and democrats in both chambers voted for net neutrality. The resolution of disapproval of net neutrality only passed in the House because there was a republican majority in the House at that time. It failed in the Senate because there was a democrat majority in the Senate at that time.
danjayh 9y ago
The problem isn't net neutrality, it's lack of competition among ISPs. Normally, I would agree with them - regulating the internet is not the way to spur innovation. But with an ISP monopoly or duopoly in most markets, either more competition (my preferred solution) or regulation is needed. As we've seen with phone service (if you're old enough to remember), regulation will give us reliable but expensive service, and competition will give us cheap, reliable, and feature-filled service.

jjawssd 9y ago

Bernie did it right. There is no reason for the government to force net neutrality if instead the government focused on maintaining a competitive ISP landscape.

1024core 9y ago

What I don't understand is: why did it take so much effort to get to 30 supporters, when Democrats have 48 in the Senate? What are the other 18 Democratic Senators doing? Why are they not fully behind NN?

notadoc 9y ago
Follow the money. I suspect you will find the answers to your questions here: https://www.opensecrets.org/influence/ https://www.opensecrets.org/influence/ https://www.opensecrets.org/elections/ https://www.opensecrets.org/elections/
al3xnull 9y ago
Careful, don't want any of those senators to step out of line over there. I hear dissent is treated with lashing and in-party sabotage.

notadoc 9y ago

Why net neutrality has turned into a partisan issue is beyond me, but in this era seemingly everything must be politicized as part of a divide and conquer strategy. I suspect the best hope for net neutrality is for states to adopt it themselves at the state level.

bruno22237 9y ago
It became a partisan issue immediately, as we have one party that is really against regulation. why wouldn't a conservative/libertarian party feel this way? Dems should run on it, win and sign it into law for good!

colanderman 9y ago

If your senator(s) are on this list [1] write them to THANK them for stepping up to do so. (And if they're not, write them to request that they do so!) [1] https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/status/950498741366247424 https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/status/950498741366247424

beedogs 9y ago

As usual, Democrats are the only party that gives a damn. Really baffling why anyone younger than me votes for anyone else.

deleted 9y ago

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