Democrats Are Just One Vote Shy of Restoring Net Neutrality (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer now says Democrats in the Senate are a single vote away from restoring net neutrality. According to the senator from New York, they now have a total of 50 votes for a Senate resolution of disapproval that would restore the Open Internet Order of 2015 and deliver a stiff rebuke to Ajit Pai and other Republican members of the FCC. It would also prevent the agency from passing a similar measure in the future, all but guaranteeing Net Neutrality is permanently preserved. Right now the resolution has the support of all 49 Democrats in the Senate and one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine. But Schumer and the rest of the caucus will have to win over one more Republican vote to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from breaking tie and allowing the repeal to stand. Under the Congressional Review Act, the Senate has 60 days to challenge a decision by an independent agency like the FCC. Democrats have less than 30 days to convince a "moderate" like John McCain or Lindsey Graham to buck their party. Further reading: The Washington Post (paywalled)

Comments

What they really need

[Baron_Yam]

They don't need a moderate Republican. Given the current state of the involved politics, what they need is a pissed off Republican who isn't interested in continuing in public service and who will vote to hurt Trump... OK, and who is also somewhat moderate by the standards of Trumpism.

There are a couple of those, if I've been following things as well as I think I have.

Re:What they really need

[zifn4b]

They don't need a moderate Republican. Given the current state of the involved politics, what they need is a pissed off Republican who isn't interested in continuing in public service and who will vote to hurt Trump

This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite. And you wonder why there is so much vitriol in politics. Your mindset is part of the problem.

Re:What they really need

[thomst]

Baron Yam observed:

They don't need a moderate Republican. Given the current state of the involved politics, what they need is a pissed off Republican who isn't interested in continuing in public service and who will vote to hurt Trump... OK, and who is also somewhat moderate by the standards of Trumpism.

There are a couple of those, if I've been following things as well as I think I have.

If only that were true. Unfortunately, it is not.

What they need - in addition to another Republican vote - is either a signature from the President, or a willingness on his part to allow their repeal bill to become law without his signature.

That might happen, especially if the Democrats cave on funding his ridiculous wall. However, given his record of doing whatever the couch creatures on Fox News tell him to do, that's probably not the way to bet ...

Re:What they really need

[Baron_Yam]

>This is the stupidest thing I've ever read.

No, just a stupid interpretation of what I posted. That's on you.

>You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite.

See, that's where you let your stupidity get the better of you, and you inferred what was never implied.

No 'ought' at all. That's the way it works right now in the GOP; vote Trump, unless you have nothing to lose and are pissed that he's destroying the party.

Re:What they really need

[Anonymous Coward]

You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite.

Spite is maybe the wrong word, but I'll take it. Voting against things because you don't like the leadership is an effective strategy for change. Leadership only works if people follow. Not blindly following your party and voting against something you might not even care about, or possibly even agree (in this instance) can work to break up a direction you don't like. There's more to politics than individual battles.

Re: What they really need

[Anonymous Coward]

If that was your intent, you sure did not express it very well.

Really, it's easier to understand if you quote the whole sentence:

Given the current state of the involved politics, what they need is a pissed off Republican who isn't interested in continuing in public service and who will vote to hurt Trump.

That's a statement of the politics, not an endorsement or suggestion, but a reflection on said conditions in politics.

Re:What they really need

[jellomizer]

No I got the vindictive vibe from your comment too.
There is an old phrase, "Even a broken clock is right twice a day." So while a lot of Trump presidency is broken, every once in a while something right gets out. So voting just because you don't like the guy and what he is doing, just because he is mostly wrong, will prevent taking advantage of good when it comes out.

That said, from my experience with jerks like Trump, they are actually easily manipulated. You just stroke their Ego, and protect them, and they will let you do whatever you want.

Re:What they really need

[T.E.D.]

This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite. And you wonder why there is so much vitriol in politics. Your mindset is part of the problem.

...only surpassed by the naiveté of acting like the entire Republican caucus hasn't been doing exactly this already since 2008. If they're gonna be like this, perhaps they can use it for GOOD for once.

Re:What they really need

[bondsbw]

Actually what put them there is the system that they exploit.

Only two candidates typically have a shot, so a vote for the best candidate is wasted and we vote against the worst candidate. On which we fervently disagree, giving credibility to the idea that the candidates who rise up are the worst ones.

A better voting system (such as range voting) would help reverse this mentality. Then you could vote based on your individual conscience without sacrificing your political will against the most terrible candidates.

Re:What they really need

[XxtraLarGe]

This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite. And you wonder why there is so much vitriol in politics. Your mindset is part of the problem.

Isn't that exactly what McCain did in the Obamacare "repeal" vote? He dramatically flew back in to Washington and cast a no vote to kill the measure, after saying that he would support it. Allegedly after that, he told Chuck Schumer "Let's see Donald Trump make America great again now."

Re:What they really need

[PopeRatzo]

You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite.

That's how Trump ended up president.

Re:What they really need

[duke_cheetah2003]

This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. You're suggesting people ought to vote on things not because of the merits of what they're voting on but out of vindictive spite. And you wonder why there is so much vitriol in politics. Your mindset is part of the problem.

Trump's election to POTUS was vindictive spite from the right in this country. I am perfectly ok with the left hitting back. Trump's entire presidency has been one spite after another, reversing everything his predecessor did that he can, not because he believes in those positions, but because Barack Obama did.

Re:What they really need

[Critical Facilities]

No. The problem is that there are no more Democrats left. They all turned into social democrats leaving those of us who aren't communists without a liberal party to vote for.

What an absurd statement. You're throwing the word "communist" around and expect to be taken seriously?

Re:What they really need

[Martin Blank]

Parties have enormous power under the First Amendment (right to free assembly) to determine how their party works. The DNC and RNC have vastly different primary rules and are allowed to as current interpretations of the First Amendment do not allow the government to interfere much with them.

These rules are also not used that often so even ideas meant to improve things don't get much testing. Public selection of candidates for major parties has only been around since the early 1970s, first getting some use in the 1972 election, so they've only been used about a dozen times. That's including incumbent primaries, though, so it's even fewer for each party.

In the case of Democrats, Sanders had a huge hurdle to get past with the superdelegates backing Clinton from the start, putting him at a distinct disadvantage before the first vote was cast. The DNC assigns delegates based on election results, so a candidate getting 60% of the vote in a two-person race will get 60% of the delegates.

Republicans do things differently, leaving it up to states how to apportion delegates. Some go winner-takes-all, some do proportional, some do proportional with floors. On top of that, additional delegates are assigned to a state that voted for the last Republican presidential candidate or has elected positions held by Republicans or a majority of Republicans.

And those are heavily simplified versions, as there are a ton of other caveats. There are other important bits, but one factor that the parties seem to work together on is primary scheduling. This is why Iowa goes first and other states go in weird orders. A state that violates a party's earliest allowed date can be ignored by the party. It's perfectly legal to do so, as freedom of association means that the parties can exclude anyone they want.

It's an ugly mess, but fixing it might get uglier.

Re: What they really need

[kenh]

You seem to be ignoring that Democrat voters in the primaries, picked Clinton a hell of a lot of times when they could have picked Sanders instead. Blame the DNC if you must, but millions of people did fill in the circle next to Clinton. Were they just following DNC orders?

You seem to be ignoring that the DNC failedto treat Bernie Sanders fairly, denied him resources and support, and at one point he had to threaten to sue the DNC to get that which the party traditionally made available to previous candidates without issue.

Pretend the Democrat party was fair if you must, but Bernie got a raw deal.

Re:What they really need

[duke_cheetah2003]

Barack Obama is an enemy of the United States, as evidenced by his support of Islam.

Sure I'm bored, I'll bite. You're a racist idiot. Support of some religion has absolutely nothing to do with someone's status as a 'enemy' or 'friend' of our country. Are you really this stupid? Ever heard of separation of church and state?

If anyone is an enemy of the USA, you are. You're an idiot with a broken world view. A waste of the O2 you breath. Good day.

scare quotes

[Orgasmatron]

Calling John McCain and Lindsey Graham "moderate" is the best use of scare quotes I've seen in a long time.

Unintentional?

Re:scare quotes

[Holi]

Since when are you the person who defines what being a Republican means? Maybe it's you guys on the extreme right who are RINOs as most are far more moderate then you.

Re: scare quotes

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lie comcast was blocking torrents before net neutrality. Look it up. Even now video gets throttled on various ISPs. We need net neutrality now!

Re:scare quotes

[jedidiah]

> I don't even think you have a clue where and how the term "states rights" originated.

It originated with the fact that the original colonies viewed themselves as independent nations. Even now, individual states run their own affairs. The national government was never meant to micromanage things. It's supposed to be inherently limited. Even the Constitution is supposed to be limits on government (rather than an enumeration individual rights).

The original colonies were so wary of a national government that they tried and failed to set up the US as a loose confederacy.

Re:scare quotes

[jedidiah]

> well show me and example of this so called great "small government" you crave.

Health insurance before Obamacare. My state handled it well on it's own. I could buy insurance on my own independent of my employer. The private option was actually better and cheaper than what any employer offered.

Now the private market has been destroyed. Prices tripled. The best class of plans is no longer available. If I were in the private market, a lot of doctors would be out of network for me. I would be locked out of the single best facility available to treat my condition.

After 10 years of having the same very good insurance company, I now have to switch policies annually at the whim of my employer. They do this in the middle of the year to screw me out of my deductible (companies get around the new ACA rules meant to stop this).

Every time I have to deal with the crap from a crappy insurance company I would never have chosen to use, I want to kick Obama in the balls and I get a renewed appreciation for federalism.

I don't mind that my city has a free hospital. I don't mind that we pay for it directly. That is far more sensible than sending our money to DC and then having our local hospital mired in federal nonsense.

You're trying to conflate more localized governance with Somalia. That's the kind of dishonest nonsense that poisons useful public policy debate.

We just don't want idiots that can't manage their own states spreading their incompetence around any further.

Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot summary is retarded. From the article:

"The measure must survive the Republican-majority House and be signed by President Trump to take effect."

Quick, someone start a GoFundMe

[olsmeister]

We need to buy a Senator.

What about abstenations?

[pots]

Maybe I just don't know how the senate works, but it seems unlikely to me that all fifty of the remaining GOP senators would vote against this. Though they might not vote for it either. Is it necessary to reach the fifty-one vote threshold, if some senators abstain?

I know the senate has some weird rules about some of these things, so what I'm really asking is whether any of those apply here.

Re:What about abstenations?

[bluefoxlucid]

I know who my contributors are; I just don't care. Then again, I'm also running for D-MD07 so.

Never let money get in the way of integrity. People will literally back you when you tell them what you're trying to do is going to harm them if they think you have integrity. I'm not sure why; I think it has something to do with folks not wanting to be the one against doing the right thing, even if it's personally inconvenient. You can't buy that.

Re:Would the Senate vote be sufficient?

[TheRaven64]

The last step is easy. Just call it the Make American Internet Great Again Act and he'll sign it. You don't think he actually reads the bills that he's asked to sign do you?

Misleading title

[rsilvergun]

The Republicans are stronger in the House making restoration unlikely there. Even then Trump will almost certainly veto it. If NN is going to come back the Dems have to take the House and Senate by a wide enough margin to overturn a veto.

It's a toxic measure

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a very very toxic measure, especially among rural Republican voters who are the ones usually stuck with one ISP. They're the ones who get screwed over by Verizon/Comcast/ ATnT. So each Republican Senator they force to support Ajit's toxic measure, is a Republican that will have to face his constituents later and explain why they supported this anti consumer measure.

This has value even if Republicans overturn it later.

Ajit has helped enormously with his insulting and patronizing videos and ignoring of all those fake comments with half a million of them from Russian email addresses. I assume he'll go on helping as the State Attorneys investigate all the identity theft. Identity theft is a crime, and obstruction of the investigation of it, is also a crime, and Ajit loves to make smug videos, reveling in his temporary power.

No excuse for another partisan vote...

[atrex]

There is no excuse for there being only a single Republican vote for this. Net Neutrality is a completely non-partisan issue with majority support from voters on both sides of the isle. Any politician that doesn't vote for it is complete scum and needs to be kicked out of office.

Re:No excuse for another partisan vote...

[atrex]

Censorship on privately owned web services is a completely separate issue from Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality's only purpose is to prevent ISPs - the gatekeepers of the internet - from deciding what content they are going to allow and how fast they're going to allow it to be.

If you want to talk about free speech on the internet, that's fine, and that's a discussion worth having, but that is not what Net Neutrality is about. Please don't confuse the issue.

Half Measures

[ElizabethGreene]

I disagree with this approach. If Congress wants Net Neutrality they should write it as a law, not just force the FCC to not repeal the existing rule which DOES NOT apply to wireless carriers.

Wireless carriers will be the big winners here. It gives them freedom their wired carriers don't have.

Purity tests

[sjbe]

Those people named? They're not moderates or conservatives. They're RINO's,

Only if you have a ridiculously far right notion of what it means to be a republican (which you clearly do). RINO is a pathetic attempt to apply a purity test to a member of the party. By today's standards Reagan would be called a RINO. Heaven forbid someone attempt to have a fruitful negotiation with someone they don't agree with complete. Or *gasp* actually compromise about anything.

Re:Purity tests

[Kierthos]

Reagan raised taxes eleven times during his two terms. That alone would get him called a RINO by some members of the party.

Re:Purity tests

[skam240]

Not a single thing you said challenged what the above post said. What Democrats did in any context is irrelevant. The fact that he prosided over a moderatly sized economic boom is irrelevant. The modern poor shape of the economy is irrelevant.

The point is that Reagan certainly wasn't very conservative by the standards many want to put on the party today and that is clearly demomstrated by his 11 tax hikes (amoung a lot of other things, like say negotiating with Democrats)

Re:Purity tests

[Solandri]

Only if you have a ridiculously far right notion of what it means to be a republican (which you clearly do). RINO is a pathetic attempt to apply a purity test to a member of the party. By today's standards Reagan would be called a RINO. Heaven forbid someone attempt to have a fruitful negotiation with someone they don't agree with complete. Or *gasp* actually compromise about anything.

For decades the Washington Post kept a database of votes by Congresscritters. If you go to the 113th Senate (the last one before they shut the project down), and click on "Votes with party" it'll sort the Senators by what percentage of the time they vote with their party. You'll find that contrary to what the media has spun for years, it's actually Republicans who are more likely to cross the party aisle and vote with Democrats, not the other way around. I mean sure there are a few blues scattered in there, but the majority of the top of the list of low faithfulness to their party are Republicans. You have to go all the way back to Bush's first term to get a Senate where Democrats were more likely to vote against their own party.

Likewise, if you click it again to sort it by Senators most likely to toe the party line, you end up with a veritable sea of blue. So hate to break it to you but the media has been feeding you fake news. For the last decade and half, most of the moderates have been Republicans. It's Republicans who've been the ones more willing to compromise, Democrats the extremists who always vote with their party. In the Senate at least. The House is more of a mixed bag, but it's a straight majority vote there. The Senate is the one with (until recently) the funny rules where a minority could stall legislation if they got everyone in their party to vote together. Now, consider that Republican Senators got a reputation for doing that all the time, when their voting record clearly shows they didn't (or only did on a few issues they cared deeply about, which is exactly what the fillibuster rules were there for). That sort of deviation between perception and reality usually comes about when the media disproportionately focuses on one or a few rare incidents which are not representative of and contradictory to the whole.

I was wondering how much longer the Washington Post would keep the database running since the data so clearly contradicted the stories they typically ran.

Democrat party are anti-american

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA is a free market, and this means at it basist level NO goverment regulations to put corrupt cronies and fat cat union bosses in charge of critical infastructure such as the internet. That is why I am not surprised that the democrat party are acting so unamerican in their attempt to over ride the duly elected goverment decision to deregulate the internet to bring more freedom and more competition to the market. Really really sad and pathetic attempt at hurting President Pai who is the best FCC president in history.

Re:Untrue

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they are.

The Congressional Review Act of 1996 established expedited (or “fast track”) procedures by which Congress may disapprove a broad range of regulatory rules issued by federal agencies by enacting a joint resolution of disapproval. For initial floor consideration, the Act provides an expedited procedure only in the Senate. (The House would likely consider the measure pursuant to a special rule.) The Senate may use the procedure for 60 days of session after the agency transmits the rule to Congress. In both houses, however, to qualify for expedited consideration, a disapproval resolution must be submitted within 60 days after Congress receives the rule, exclusive of recess periods. Pending action on a disapproval resolution, the rule may go into effect, unless it is a “major rule” on which the President or issuing agency does not waive a delay period of 60 calendar days

Stop lying AC.

Americans are further becoming...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the laughing stock of the world. Keep it up!

Re:I don't think so.

[Mashiki]

The trouble with the ACA repeal was that the electorate figured out it meant losing access to healthcare and billions of dollars in insurance subsidies. That's what shut it down.

Maybe you can tell that to the millions of americans who had their healthcare premiums go up by 400%(to 500-600/mo) with a $6000 deductible. To the point where the penalty for not having ACA insurance was cheaper then having insurance in the first place, or the millions who lost health insurance because of it. Because I'll tell ya something, there were a lot of seniors in FL(Zephyrhills) where I stay for part of the winter who couldn't afford insurance anymore.

Re:The other side

[Anonymous Coward]

The right only sees Net Neutrality as "more government control of the internet" because they've been tricked by politicians like Ted Cruz calling net neutrality "Obamacare for the internet", which is completely disingenuous.

The fact is, NN boils down to just this: ISPs can't discriminate against (or be in favor of) data flowing through their pipes.

The ACA wasn't responsible for that

[rsilvergun]

private insurance was. Your premiums are going up because medical care isn't something that should be paid for by the private sector. It's too complex. You can't 'shop around' for a heart transplant like you can for a breakfast sandwich. Also, you can go without the breakfast sandwich. You can't go without the heart transplant.

The ACA was a bad law. But it was the best we could get with a Congress full of Republicans and Blue Dog Dems. We already know the solution, which is Single Payer. Bernie Sander's has a townhall meeting coming up to discuss it. Hopefully it gets some traction and we can join the rest of the civilized world (who pay 1/2 what we do for better results).

Re:The ACA wasn't responsible for that

[penandpaper]

I would have more faith in Sander's single payer if his state and others would implement it first. California is the closest I think to try and it was a law that had no mechanism to fund it.

If democrats can't get it to work at the state level why would it work at the national level?

Re:The ACA wasn't responsible for that

[SlaveToTheGrind]

the rest of the civilized world (who pay 1/2 what we do for better results)

The problem with this old tired meme is that Americans' higher prices subsidize the rest of the world's lower prices. If we join the rest of the world and institute our own governmental price fixing, some combination of availability and/or innovation in care will disappear -- for everyone. There is no free lunch, no matter how many Bernie Sanders there are out there sweetly crooning otherwise to people who really really wish it were true.

(And if I'm late to the party and shittier-but-equal services for all is the actual goal, let's just be honest about that.)

That's not true

[rsilvergun]

and it does a great disservice to Americans. Trump became president for two reasons. First, he ran as a left wing populist. He promised jobs for all, medical care for all (and if rumors are to be believed he floated Single Payer to his cabinet before they shut him down), expanded infrastructure spending and His America First platform gave the impression he'd end the 7 wars we're fighting. Meanwhile Hilary stood for... well nothing. She ran a campaign almost completely without content. I'm knee deep in politics and I couldn't tell you a single policy she'd enact. She was the definition of true conservatism: Keep everything exactly as is. But for millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck that wasn't enough...

The second reason is she got bilked out of $700 million dollars. That's the amount of money the DNC gave 5 (count 'em 5) consultants to run Hillary's campaign. By all accounts they didn't actually campaign for her. There were numerous reports of zero effort made in the rust belt. Funny thing is same thing happened to Rhomney. You'd think she'd have learned from his mistake...

Anyway, the point is Dems need economic populism if they're going to win; even if the Corporate Blue Dogs don't like it. If the Dems run another "I'm not Trump" style right wing candidate Trump will skate right into another term. Because after all, what have you got to lose?

Re:That's not true

[PopeRatzo]

Trump became president for two reasons. First, he ran as a left wing populist

Here is the full text of Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

He did not run as a left-wing populist. He ran on an agenda of racism, jingoism and owning the libs.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics...

Um... no. That's not true

[rsilvergun]

Who told you that? They're lying. Most of the research going on is done in Europe because it's tough to get America businesses to pay for it. The rest is done in public Universities with government grants. America is all about privatizing profits and socializing costs. I've had a few relatives lives saved by medicine, and even in the States it was by socialized medicine. They ran out of money long before they ran out of illness and the drugs that saved them were developed in Europe. One of their doctors left the States because she couldn't get her cancer research funded. It wasn't profitable enough.