AFTER the Senate Democrats with 3 Republicans forced a vote and passed a CRA to restore net neutrality the CRA in the House is being pushed for a vote. Please sign the petition organized by Demand Progress and a plethora of allied organizations telling your representative to sign the discharge petition to bring the CRA to the House floor for a vote and then to vote for it and send the repeal to NOT MY pres drumpf/trump to sign and so restore net neutrality.
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The House of Representatives has the opportunity to save net neutrality — or let it die.
Tell the House: Sign the CRA discharge petition!
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It's Monday, June 11: the day the FCC's repeal of net neutrality takes effect.
You may not notice any changes immediately. We don't know exactly when or how AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast will start throttling speeds and creating fast and slow lanes on the internet.
But we know it's coming. And that's why we need to force the House to save net neutrality.
Thanks to your activism, a bipartisan majority of senators voted to overturn the FCC and save net neutrality.
Now the fight is in the House, where we are gaining more support for the CRA resolution by the day. But we still need dozens more reps to sign a discharge petition to force a floor vote.
Now the fight is in the House, where we are gaining more support for the CRA resolution by the day. But we still need dozens more reps to sign a discharge petition to force a floor vote.
There's not a moment to lose. Every day the American people go without protections for a free and open internet will be one too many.
The pundits and Big Cable lobbyists said we could never win the CRA resolution in the Senate, but we did.
We flooded the Senate with millions of calls and emails from constituents -- and we got all 49 members of the Democratic caucus, along with three Republicans, to pass the CRA. It’s going to be an uphill climb, but if we make sure our representatives hear us loud and clear, we can win in the House too.
86% of Americans oppose the repeal of net neutrality, including a huge majority of Republicans. With multiple Senate Republicans voting to overturn the FCC, we have a strong shot of winning the House if we get the support of all Democrats and about two dozen Republicans.
We proved the pundits wrong once, and will prove them wrong again. But we need to raise our voices and make sure every representative knows you expect them to stand on the side of Team Internet, and not Team Cable.
For the free and open internet,
Carli Stevenson
Campaigner
Demand Progress
Campaigner
Demand Progress
Senate votes to save net neutrality rules
The Senate on Wednesday voted to reinstate the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) net neutrality rules, passing a bill that has little chance of advancing in the House but offers net neutrality supporters and Democrats a political rallying point for the midterm elections.
Democrats were able to force Wednesday’s vote using an obscure legislative tool known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA). CRA bills allow Congress, with a majority vote in each chamber and the president's signature, to overturn recent agency moves.
Three Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and John Kennedy (La.) — joined the 49 Senate Democrats to pass the bill 52-47.
They argue that without the net neutrality regulations, which require internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally, companies such as Verizon and Comcast will be free to discriminate against certain content or boost their partner websites.
And despite the odds against the bill, Democrats see tremendous upside in the potential to use it as a campaign issue.
"A key question for anyone on the campaign trail in 2018 will now be, 'Do you support net neutrality?' " Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who introduced the bill, said in a press conference after the vote.
Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai blasted Democrats for their "scare tactics" and said that his proposal is meant to correct the FCC's regulatory overreach during the Obama administration.
“It’s disappointing that Senate Democrats forced this resolution through by a narrow margin," Pai said in a statement. "But ultimately, I'm confident that their effort to reinstate heavy-handed government regulation of the internet will fail.”
Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said he would be releasing a discharge petition on the bill on Thursday morning.
For their part, most Republicans argue that the net neutrality rules are unnecessary and onerous for broadband providers. The GOP has been urging Democrats to come to the negotiating table to work out a legislative replacement to the FCC rules, a move that is also backed by the broadband industry.
"I’m disappointed but not surprised that Democrats rejected my offer to write, consider, and amend legislation in a process open to ideas from both sides of the aisle," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said in a statement. "Despite this vote, I remain committed to finding a path to bipartisan protections for the internet and stand ready to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle when they are ready as well.”
But net neutrality supporters reject the idea that a Republican-controlled Congress could come up with protections as strong as the FCC rules. Legislation offered by GOP members leaves open the possibility that internet providers could create “fast lanes” by charging websites for faster speeds.
At a press conference Wednesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in calling on Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to bring the bill to the House floor — and rank-and-file Republicans to back it.
"We consider this one of the major issues of the 2018 campaign," Schumer told reporters.
Polls consistently show public support for net neutrality, with one from before the FCC’s repeal vote reporting that more than 80 percent of respondents — including 75 percent of Republicans and 89 percent of Democrats — wanted to see the rules stay on the books.
The FCC voted 3-2 along party lines in December to repeal its Obama-era Open Internet Order, a move the GOP hailed as a rollback of regulatory overreach.
"Following today’s vote, Americans will still be able to access the websites they want to visit. They will still be able to enjoy the services they want to enjoy," Pai said last year. "There will still be cops on the beat guarding a free and open internet. This is the way things were prior to 2015, and this is the way they will be once again."
Democrats on and off the panel have decried the action ever since.
"As a result of today’s misguided action, our broadband providers will get extraordinary new power from this agency," Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said at the time. "They will have the power to block websites, throttle services and censor online content. They will have the right to discriminate and favor the internet traffic of those companies with whom they have pay-for-play arrangements and the right to consign all others to a slow and bumpy road.”
Democrats and net neutrality supporters are also trying to fight the FCC’s repeal order in court, though the legal battle is likely to drag on for months.
Updated at 4:58 p.m
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