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Net Neutrality Bill Sails Through the House But Faces an Uncertain Political Future (washingtonpost.com) 233

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
House lawmakers on Wednesday approved a Democrat-backed bill (alternative source) that would restore rules requiring AT&T, Verizon and other Internet providers to treat all Web traffic equally, marking an early step toward reversing one of the most significant deregulatory moves of the Trump era. From a report: But the net neutrality measure is likely to stall from here, given strong Republican opposition in the GOP-controlled Senate and the White House, where aides to President Trump this week recommended that he veto the legislation if it ever reaches his desk. The House's proposal, which passed by a vote of 232-190, would reinstate federal regulations that had banned AT&T, Verizon and other broadband providers from blocking or slowing down customers' access to websites. Adopted in 2015 during the Obama administration, these net neutrality protections had the backing of tech giants and startups as well as consumer advocacy groups, which together argued that strong federal open Internet protections were necessary to preserve competition and allow consumers unfettered access to movies, music and other content of their choice.
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Net Neutrality Bill Sails Through the House But Faces an Uncertain Political Future More

Net Neutrality Bill Sails Through the House But Faces an Uncertain Political Future

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  • Voting matters! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ksevio ( 865461 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @12:04PM (#58415564) Homepage
    For all the people that say both parties are the same, here's a clear difference in policy.

    Unless you're against Net Neutrality, don't vote for the GOP next cycle

    • Re:Voting matters! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @12:30PM (#58415706) Journal

      Because political parties are one-issue beasts, right?

      How about we vote for candidates that are the best policy match for our individual views, without any predisposition to any party at all?

      A "omg don't vote Republican" is not any more nuanced or informed than "I'll just vote the party ticket"

      • Re:Voting matters! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @12:51PM (#58415882)

        Except that it isn't about a single issue. It's about a pattern.

        Democrats could push a bill that says, "Every conservative will get a free million dollars paid for by the left" and it would still get blocked, for no other reason than because it was Democrats that pushed it. Republicans have a *demonstrated* track record of doing this exact thing.

        Hell, they had a good two year period where they controlled ALL the major branches of government. And what did they do? They spent the overwhelming majority of time reversing anything and anything the Democrats so much as glanced at, no matter how sensible. Oh, and trying to blame Hillary for everything up to and including running a child prostitution ring out of a pizzeria. I have no idea if they've managed to accomplish anything useful because if they did, it was drowned out by near limitless barrage of nonsense.

        The Democrats are not perfect. Very far from it, in fact. But they are the epitome of sanity compared to the GOP.

        • Re: Voting matters! (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I agree with the parent but will also add; it's easy to pass this stuff in the House right now because they know it won't go anywhere. If the Dems could actually make something happen, they likely wouldn't pass a lot of they are voting on right now. Righteous indignation is easy when you know you won't have to back it up.

        • Yup. Political attitudes have changed and there's very little idealogical consistency any more. If the dems propose it, Republicans and conservatives will fight it to the death, and vice versa for the most part.

          Nothing exemplifies this more than Obamacare. Obamacare is an attempt to use the power of free markets and capitalism to solve a social problem. It's the sort of idea that Republicans and conservatives would have been salivating over 20 years ago. But now? Put in place by a dem president, and a

          • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

            by Highdude702 ( 4456913 )

            You guys feed too much into the 'brown skin' shit. Seriously its old. Not many people give a fuck about skin color. And the few that do on both sides is just noise. Please stop with that nonsense, we could make far more progress all around. Calling everyone with different opinions a racist helps nobody. Look at jussie smollett and the trash hes caused.

          • Obamacare is an attempt to use the power of free markets and capitalism to solve a social problem.

            The ACA was a boondoggled attempt at solving the dilemma of how to expand access to healthcare while simultaneously protecting the profits of the health insurance industry. It doesn't exactly stand as a shining beacon to our government's ability to solve problems.

        • No (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          BOTH parties are corrupt. BOTH parties consistently do things that serve the interests of a few, to the detriment of the many. The particulars of WHICH few they serve are different between the two parties. The flavor of the arguments they use to justify their actions is different two.

          But your belief that one party is intrinsically morally superior to the other is not only false, it is harmful. That belief is what motivates party-line voters to remain party-line voters. The phenomenon of party-line voti

        • Democrats could push a bill that says, "Every conservative will get a free million dollars paid for by the left" and it would still get blocked, for no other reason than because it was Democrats that pushed it.

          Really? I think it would be opposed because it is 1) stupid, 2) unconstitutional, 3) would create an immense crush at the local elections offices as people changed their party preferences, (including green, peace, communist, and independents all becoming Republican overnight), and 3) would create a rush of people trying to hide all their income so they wouldn't have to be one of the Democrats that has to pay for it.

          Trying to put words in other people's mouths when you don't understand their philosophy is r

      • Doesn't understand chicken-and-egg conundrum
        Except you're completely ignoring the fact that we have an ostensibly 'conservative' political party and an ostensibly 'liberal' political party because the majority of humans naturally form into one group or another. You probably believe you're somehow immune to that but I'll bet you cash money if we did a deep-dive on your voting record and opinions posted online we'd find that you fall more to one side of the line than the other. No such thing as 'true neutra

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Ksevio ( 865461 )
        OK, let's look at some other issues:

        Health care: Democrats are for it, want to improve it, Republicans want to make it worse, have fewer people covered.

        Science: Democrats are for it, want to continue funding it, react appropriately to the results for subjects like climate change, Republicans want to defund it, think climate change is a myth

        Arts: Democrats for funding it, Republicans eliminate funding for it

        Immigration: Democrats are for reasonable immigration policy, Republicans for LOCKING CHILDREN
        • Those are the Obama cages. Plus, who can vote for the party of race hate and divisive identity politics? They couldn't even pass a resolution condemning anti semitism because it's so legitimately popular among their crowd.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Ksevio ( 865461 )
            No, that's incorrect. The policy to separate children and lock them in cages was started by the Trump administration. If you have other evidence that it was occurring during Obama, you should cite it.

            The Democrats have consistently been the more inclusive party - Republicans are the ones that say the people chanting "Jews will not replace us" are "good people" so just because one member states Israel has a lot of influence doesn't make them anti-semitic.

      • How about we vote for candidates that are the best policy match for our individual views, without any predisposition to any party at all?

        That sounds great in theory, but doesn't work in practice. By far the most important vote your congressional rep will cast is the vote for the Speaker, which determines which party controls the legislative agenda. That is a party line vote.

    • How is this marked "Troll"? Some partisan comes along, doesn't like it, and doesn't want to think about it. There ARE differences between the parties. The Dems DO support net neutrality, and the GOP stands against it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ksevio ( 865461 )
        Because /. has a large population of super-right-wing trolls that like to steer the conversation in a way that favors Republicans or Russia. You can usually tell based on their name: Anonymous Coward

        • Because /. has a large population of super-right-wing trolls that like to steer the conversation in a way that favors Republicans or Russia. You can usually tell based on their name: Anonymous Coward

          Judging by my posts that have been modded straight to hell, a lot of the right-wing trolls have logged-in accounts too. ACs don't get mod points.

          These people need to ask themselves how weak their position must truly be, if they can't support it with a rebuttal and instead resort to just modding down because they disagree with an opposing political viewpoint. It's like Idiocracy fucking came true.

      • It's very easy to vote for something that you know will never get through the Senate, or would be subject to instant Presidential veto.

        This was a show vote, and nothing more. This is the Democrats playing the same game that political parties have been playing every time there is a divided government - position your political opposition on the wrong side of any issue that you are favored on in a poll, and then scream to all the fundraisers how the big bad $PARTY is a bunch of puppets for [corporations|union

  • I’m a hardcore Network Neutrality supporter & I really wish NN was a single Issue that would get people to change Who they vote for but it isn’t. Without sufficient Senate support this bill is completely useless grandstanding and affects no-one but ineffectual cheerleaders.

    • Re:Useless political Grandstanding (Score:5, Interesting)

      by flippy ( 62353 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @12:22PM (#58415650) Homepage
      Yup. Unfortunately, it's not an issue that's going to change anyone's vote. I'm all for an open market and less government regulation, but if we're going down that road with ISPs, we should go all the way - stop giving out government-sponsored monopolies to cable companies (read: ISPs) and the like, and have real competition. Then, the cry of "if your ISP isn't giving you what you want, switch to another provider!" can really happen.
      • and lord knows I've done polls on this forum to ask if anyone was going to change their vote. But as part of a broader narrative that the GOP consistently ignores the Will of the People I think it will change votes.

        See, this is the difference between the GOP and the Democrats. The GOP pushes their narratives and their policies relentlessly. They lost on Net Neutrality time and time again but they never stopped. Eventually random election cycles and a crap candidate put a pro-corporate Republican in the
    • It's never a waste of time to at least voice an opinion about something you believe in, and 'useless' in your opinion or not it's not pointless for legislators to keep presenting legislation like this, because it keeps it relevant and in peoples' thoughts. The opponents of NN would like nothing better than for everyone to completely forget the whole concept and just passively accept what's forced on them.

      • Did you say the same thing about all those Repeal Obamacare votes in the house pre-2016?

        I'll bet you didn't. And it is the exact same thing.

        • Racists and bigots have the same right to Freedom of Speech as everyone else, and everyone else also has the same right to Freedom of Speech to tell them to shut the fuck up and get the fuck out, too.
          Similarly you have the right to attempt to troll me or anyone else -- and I have the right to tell you "0/10, lurk moar", and also "YOU HAVE TO GO BACK: https://boards.4chan.org/pol [4chan.org] " when you post utter and complete drivel like you just did.
          Oh and I'm not infringing on your right to Freedom of Speech -- I'm

  • Power is concentrated in the hands of too few (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TomGreenhaw ( 929233 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @12:24PM (#58415670)
    Mitch McConnell should not have the authority to deny a vote on a bill passed by the House. Nancy Pelosi should not have the authority to block a bill passed by the Senate.

    We need a rule that forces a vote on any bill passed by the other body after a suitable period of time for debate. We as voters have a right to know where our elected officials stand, otherwise the people lose control to wealthy donors.

    • These rules have always been there, and yet the Republic survives. There are plenty of ways for getting these votes "on the record" from attaching them as riders on must-pass legislation, etc.

      The reality is that only the activists for certain issues pay attention to any of that, and NN is not a deciding issue for the vast majority of voters the way that something like abortion is, even though your average congress critter has zero ability to do anything about abortion due to supreme court decisions.

      • Its more than than net neutrality, IMHO

        Politicians need to be forced to take a public stand on issues so they can be held accountable by their constituents if not their donors. This is how democracy should work, and our system clearly can stand some improvements the founding fathers couldn't foresee.

        We have a right to know where they stand on many issues, e.g. Green New Deal, release of full Mueller Report to closed door House and Senate oversight committees, immigration strategy and tactics, health car

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shotgun ( 30919 )

      Mitch and Nancy get their power from the people that would be voting on said bills. And the people that don't want to be called out on either side of the issue could just vote "present", like the Dems did on the Green New Deal.

    • Somehow I have a feeling you didn't feel the same way when Harry Reid was shitcanning all the duly passed Affordable Care Act repeals that came his way from the House.

      Those were show-votes too, and just as DOA in the Senate where there would be one line put into the record of it being "laid on the table" - e.g. dumped in the trash where it belongs without consideration by the Senate.

      If you think that Congress wastes time now, and that the President has too much power already, go ahead and institute what you

  • No, not "uncertain"...quite certain, actually. (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @12:36PM (#58415746) Journal

    Political grandstanding by one party in congress, controlling one house, will not pass the other party, controlling the other house, nor the presidency (who has to sign it).

    Thank God for divided government.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      Indeed. There was never any intention for this to pass. The people who wrote it knew it had no chance in hell of ever even coming to a vote in the Senate.

      And they don't care. This is not, and never was, about net neutrality. It's about extracting money out of their base for the next election cycle.

      Just like everything that both parties do.

      If they actually solved any problems, then they couldn't solicit donations from their base to try to solve it next election.

  • Discuss this YESTERDAY?

    Cheerleading on Slashdot never changes I guess..

  • Republican talking points (Score:3)

    by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @12:49PM (#58415862)

    Without even trying c-span channel surfing yesterday I found republicans explaining their opposition in the form of bashing Title II.

    Democrats could have avoided this problem. They could have defined clean NN. If republicans still wanted to attack clean NN at least their excuses for doing so would be more transparent and less defensible to voters.

  • With Congress split, both House & Senate will spend half their time overwhelmingly passing bills that would never be passed by the other chamber, signed into law or pass constitutional muster. These are strictly demonstrations to garner more campaign funds or to inflame the support base. It's a jerk-off fest.

  • Google, Facebook are not regulated monopolies. AT&T and the cable companies are. I think this is giving more power to more lightly regulated entities to control internet content. They already are with their restrictive content policies.

    • AT&T and the cable companies are.

      Which doesn't matter one bit when the regulators are conspiring with those they regulate, which is where we are now.

      You also seem to completely misunderstand what Net Neutrality is. It regulates ISP's, not Web sites. Google and Facebook don't factor into the Net Neutrality equation, except that they are Web sites that ISP's will be forbidden to discriminate against.

      Out of curiosity, what do you think Net Neutrality is?

      • Net Neutrality is/was a law that, in its majestic equality, forced ISPs to not throttle a small startup's service's bandwidth, as well as Google's, so that both the small startup and Google can continue to make profit at the same rate they currently do and compete on the market without favoritism.

  • It'll be killed by Mitch McConnell in the Senate. The Dems will then add it to the growing list of reasons to vote for them and not the GOP, which given that this is a partisan issue (voting is generally along party lines with one or two GOPers breaking ranks when they know it's safe to do so as it dies in the Senate) I don't think that's unfair.
  • This is the internet people. Save it!

  • In a sane political world, representatives would look at how their constituents were affected by legislation and vote accordingly.

    The people who have the most to lose by the lack of net neutrality are the ones who live in areas where there is a wired broadband monopoly. The vast majority of those areas are outside the major cities, and mostly Republican voting.

    Republican legislators who are looking out for their constituents should thus be in favor of net neutrality.

    Or at least, they should offer market-ba

  • to your federally protected NN ready wireline.
    As equally slow as all NN protected networks.
    No competition. No innovation. No community broadband.
    Your telco monopoly can enjoy full federal protection with NN rules and laws to keep out any new services.

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