We can’t just trust Congress to restore net neutrality. We have to make them.
TL;DR — Shills for Big Cable in Congress have announced three fake net neutrality bills to confuse the public and derail our campaign to restore strong open Internet protections. Now we need Congress to follow through on their campaign promise and introduce a strong bill to fully overturn the FCC’s repeal before any of the three bad bills gain traction. Click here to contact your lawmakers and demand they act ASAP.
It’s been over six weeks since the new Congress was sworn in and there’s still no sign of legislation to fully overturn the FCC’s 2017 net neutrality repeal. Now it’s up to each and every Internet user to make sure that key Energy and Commerce Committee members responsible for introducing legislation know that the whole Internet is watching them.
Late last year, Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Frank Pallone and Mike Doyle published an op-ed to assure voters that net neutrality was high atop their list of priorities — but so far no legislation has been introduced. In the meantime, shills for Big Cable have already announced three fake net neutrality bills to confuse the public and derail our campaign to restore strong open Internet protections.
We shouldn’t take for granted that House lawmakers are going to do the right thing. When we were fighting for California’s “gold standard” net neutrality bill SB822, a key Democratic lawmaker unexpectedly gutted the bill during a crucial committee hearing. We flooded his office with calls and emails, and even threatened to run a crowdfunded attack billboard. In the end the he did the right thing and restored the bill to its original state, but it taught us a powerful lesson about how far the telecoms will go to derail our fight to restore strong open Internet protections.
Members of Congress — including those on the committee responsible for restoring net neutrality — have taken a lot of money from the telecoms over the years. Some, like Rep. O’Halleran (AZ-1), even dodged signing the Congressional Review Act (CRA) discharge petition last year to force a House vote that would restore the FCC’s strong net neutrality rules. Unless we make a ton of noise and really speak out, there’s no guarantee we’ll get our open Internet protections restored.
With bad bills circulating and no good proposal to point to, we’re at high risk for weak, telecom-funded Democrats adding their name to a bill that would permanently damage the open web. If even a couple add their name, it could start a domino effect that could undo the strategic ground we gained through last year’s CRA fight. We can’t let this happen.
