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Senate Approves Overturning FCC's Net Neutrality Repeal
The Senate approved a resolution Wednesday to nullify the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rollback, dealing a symbolic blow to the FCC's new rule that remains on track to take effect next month.
The final vote was 52-47. As expected, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Me., joined Democrats in voting to overturn the FCC's controversial decision. But two other Republicans — Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — also voted in favor of the resolution of disapproval.
The outcome is unlikely to derail the FCC's repeal of Obama-era rules that restrict Internet service providers' ability to slow down or speed up users' access to specific websites and apps.
The legislative victory is fleeting because the House does not intend to take similar action, but Democrats are planning to carry the political fight over Internet access into the 2018 midterms.
DannyB: Hopefully we don't all get slower connections so that ISPs can use the bandwidth to create paid prioritization.
Also at The Hill and TechCrunch.
See also: Everything you need to know about Congress's net neutrality resolution
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday May 16 2018, @11:04PM (5 children)
Yes, they are close enough to exactly the same when it comes to this issue. They are puppets of their party's leadership. If they were not the vote would not be so clearly split along party lines. I doubt that 49 Democratic Senators really care that much about freedom of the Internet and all 47 Republican Senators really want to vote in favor of it.
I wouldn't mind exploring why Kennedy and Collins dissented. Murkowski I can figure out.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Touché) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday May 16 2018, @11:26PM (2 children)
Holy crap. I have to assume you pulled a groin muscle spinning it like that...
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday May 17 2018, @02:21PM (1 child)
Not really. It is reasonably easy to look at any item NOT in either party's platform, see a clearly partisan divide, and realize that for all practical purposes legislators are not the independent actors they ought to be but are instead tools of the party apparatus. As I said above, that's the controlling similarity that spans the issues.
And it wasn't quite this way before. [washingtonpost.com] I think the graphics are better in the WaPo article but here's a nice table from Brookings [brookings.edu] which paints nearly the same picture. (Fair disclosure, Brookings was also the data source in the WaPo article, so it's not independent confirmation).
The Democratic party leadership cares about this issue only as much as they think it will get them midterm votes and can castigate the Republicans as EEEEvil. But that's exactly what they're gaming here so you get a party-line lockstep vote. Now they'll have a weapon that, "we could have preserved your open Internet if only the Republicans didn't have control of Congress." That's all they're after. That's why even the Republicans realize this was symbolic and not a real power move [nytimes.com]. That's why minimal, if any, energy is going to be invested in this in the House. It is a symbol, not a true issue to be fought for.
But by all means, don't let me distract you from believing that the parties are materially different. They keep better control of you that way.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Saturday May 19 2018, @04:43PM
I don't even fundamentally disagree that many or even most most politicians on both sides vote vote the party line and all that. Even so, in a case where the official Republican position is flat our wrong, and the official Democratic position is right (keeping in mind that the original bad FCC decision was 3 Republicans against 2 Democrats) this rationale that it somehow "doesn't count" is some pretty serious spin if you ask me. Whatever.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17 2018, @05:49AM (1 child)
But the only dissenting voices were Ron Wyden and Rand Paul.
Point being: Both parties mostly hold to either party or lobbyist lines, and the number of politicians who hold even a semblance of a steady stance on ANY issues is very low. At least as far as tech and privacy are concerned Ron Wyden is the only one who consistently seems to vote in the public's interest, no matter the issue or where the parties draw their lines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17 2018, @07:38PM
it was the "save the traffic'd children" bill.