Senate Votes To Save Net Neutrality (gizmodo.com)

In a monumental decision that will resonate through election season, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted to reinstate the net neutrality protections the Federal Communications Commission decided to repeal late last year. From a report: For months, procedural red tape has delayed the full implementation of the FCC's decision to drop Title II protections that prevent internet service providers from blocking or throttling online content. Last week, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai confirmed that the repeal of the 2015 Open Internet Order would go into effect on June 11. But Democrats put forth a resolution to use its power under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to review new regulations by federal agencies through an expedited legislative process. All 49 Democrats in the Senate supported the effort to undo the FCC's vote. Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, John Kennedy of Louisiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska crossed party lines to support the measure. Further reading: ArsTechnica.

Comments

Not Save... Authorize...

[Tulsa_Time]

The FCC was never authorized.

Re:Not Save... Authorize...

[Anonymous Coward]

The FCC was never authorized.

Of course they were and the court agree.

Re:Not Save... Authorize...

[Anubis IV]

How do you figure? The FCC's congressional charter and subsequent amendments specifically authorize them to classify services under Title I and Title II and then regulate them accordingly, and the courts specifically upheld the FCC's authority to either enforce (or not enforce) Net Neutrality via Title II regulation. While I stridently disagree with what the FCC has done under Pai with regards to Net Neutrality, it's still well within their authority (though perhaps contrary to their purpose and mandate) to have done it, just as Wheeler's FCC was well within its authority to have classified the ISPs in a different manner.

Re:Not Save... Authorize...

[Tulsa_Time]

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Let a few states pass laws that say they will not do business with ISPs that are not Neutral and problem solved...

10th Amendment - Underrated and under appreciated.

Re:Not Save... Authorize...

[PopeRatzo]

Let a few states pass laws that say they will not do business with ISPs that are not Neutral and problem solved...

In other words, you're expecting California to save your asses. Again.

Re:Not Save... Authorize...

[pots]

The FCC very obviously falls under the interstate commerce clause. Are you seriously trying to claim that a simplistic reading of the constitution is enough to invalidate their authority? An argument that eighty years of extremely litigious broadcasters and telcos and ISPs have never been able to sell in a courtroom, with judges who actually know something about constitutional law?

Where does this constitution-thumping bullshit come from anyway? This stuff is complicated, and thoroughly examined. Is some laymen really going to come along and say, "Hey, I read the constitution once. Did you know that everything I don't like is illegal?"

Gesture is great but toothless, at this point

[garcia]

From the article:

Still, todayâ(TM)s vote means the proposal will have to go the House where Democrats will need to convince 25 Republicans to support net neutrality in order for the measure to passâ"and they have until January of next year to do it.

So, as of right now, this is largely a gesture but still a good first step.

Re:Gesture is great but toothless, at this point

[barc0001]

Yes, but all the House seats are up for re-election in November. It could very well be by January they no longer need any Republican support if the Dems take the House.

Re:Gesture is great but toothless, at this point

[GregMmm]

Not true. Everyone could vote for it in the House, and then it will go to the president...

Veto. Dead and done.

One the other hand, how about those same people in the Senate and the House stop wasting time with this stupid gesture and make a law. Eh that would take real work... Lets just play the politics game.

Re:Gesture is great but toothless, at this point

[Actually, I do RTFA]

This isn't a law, it's an Act of Congress (enabled by an existing law). The President has as much legal right to veto it as you or I do.

Re:Gesture is great but toothless, at this point

[squiggleslash]

It's worse than that, due to the Hastert rule the bill will never even be allowed a vote unless a majority of Republicans support it. So it's essentially dead in the water.

Re:Gesture is great but toothless, at this point

[mysidia]

"Act of congress" or not, Acts under the Congressional review act have been made invalid by a presidential veto 12 times --- every time it was Obama.

There's no real provision in the constitution for an act of congress that can't be veto'd, aside from setting house rules, impeachment proceedings, or constitutional amendments.

Re:Gesture is great but toothless, at this point

[barc0001]

> There's no real provision in the constitution for an act of congress that can't be veto'd,

Actually, there is:

"Congress can override a veto by passing the act by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate. (Usually an act is passed with a simple majority.)"

https://www.archives.gov/files/legislative/resources/education/veto/background.pdf

Re:Gesture is great but toothless, at this point

[Anubis IV]

This isn't a law, it's an Act of Congress (enabled by an existing law). The President has as much legal right to veto it as you or I do.

Aside from the parenthetical statement, pretty much everything you said is factually incorrect.

TL;DR: Yes, it is a law; no, it is not an Act of Congress; no, being an Act of Congress isn't to the exclusion of being a law; and yes, the President can veto it.

Getting into the specifics...
1) The House hasn't voted on it yet, so it's not a law yet if we want to get technical, but it will be if it successfully goes through the rest of the political process, the same as any other law that began in Congress. As such, it's fair to colloquially refer to it as a "law" (e.g. "The Senate passed a law"), just as you might with a bill or whatnot (more on the "whatnot" in a minute), even though those aren't technically laws yet either.

2) By that same token, it's not an Act of Congress yet either, since it needs to pass both chambers of Congress to be an Act of Congress.

3) Of note, laws are Acts of Congress, so saying, "This isn't a law, it's an Act of Congress" makes about as much sense as saying that an orange isn't an orange because it's a fruit. The one isn't to the exclusion of the other.

4) What passed today was technically an accelerated joint resolution per the Congressional Review Act (the "existing law" you referred to). Joint resolutions are basically just bills by another name, so far as you and I are concerned. Both are used to pass laws using virtually identical procedures. They get used in different situations, but otherwise the only everyday difference is that bills create laws known as Acts (e.g. Congressional Review Act), whereas joint resolutions create laws known as Resolutions (e.g. Iraq Resolution). Again, both of them create laws.

5) As with bills, the President absolutely can veto this, since joint resolutions cross his desk the same as bills do after they pass both chambers of Congress with a simple majority (with one notable exception: a joint resolution to amend the US Constitution does not cross the President's desk). Should he veto it, Congress can override him with a 2/3 supermajority of both chambers, again, the same as with bills.

Thank goodness

[Mark4ST]

Thank goodness! Now I can get back to using the internet for what it was invented for: pornography.

Everything that's wrong with U.S. politics

[nwaack]

This should not have been a vote across party lines! This vote, and others like it, just prove that congress-critters couldn't give a flying f#ck about the people they're mean to represent.

Re:Everything that's wrong with U.S. politics

[Actually, I do RTFA]

This vote, and others like it, just prove that congress-critters couldn't give a flying f#ck about the people they're mean to represent.

Actually, it proves that 52 of them do

Re:Everything that's wrong with U.S. politics

[psmoot]

Sure. That's why they should have tried to pass a bill under the previous President. Oh wait, that would have been DOA in Congress too.

This, and things like the Iran Nuke deal, underscore how shaky it is to bypass Congress and administer "with a pen and a phone". Anything done unilaterally by one administration can just as quickly be undone by the next, as we're now seeing. If a President wants to accomplish something lasting, he or she needs to get Congress to go along with it and pass some legislation. Otherwise, your legacy is built on a foundation of sand.

Yay Founding Fathers for making it harder to implement controversial policies without getting broad support. That's not sarcasm, this is why we have separate branches.

In this case, I'm happy with current outcome. The Net Neutrality regulations were a bad solution to a non-problem. I'm sure there are other cases where I'll be less glad policy is flip-flopping every four to eight years.

Re:"Saved" here means nothing, right?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

And then it goes to the house and then the potato-in-chief

Half true. It goes to the House. It's not a law, so no POTUS involvement.

Importantly, because it's not a law, it can go to the House after the next election. Your vote matters.

Three Senators, not two

[jbmartin6]

Three Republican senators voted in favor: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

Re:Not Anything Actually

[Austerity Empowers]

Symbolic bullshit.

Yes, but as a Texan I note Senator Ted Cruz voted on behalf of the mafia, so I will support Beto in November. Plus the very insincere form letter I received full of republican chicken speak helped me understand he doesn't even know what he's talking about. It would be nice to see a vote in the house to figure out which representatives also need to be replaced.

Of course, Cruz will probably win anyway because Texas. Yee haw.

Re:Not Anything Actually

[youngone]

It seems a shame that if you don't like the Republican on offer your only realistic option to replace him is a Democrat.
Some of us live in democracies. We might even have the option of 5 or 6 different parties.
Some of those parties may not even sell us out for corporate money.

It's nice.

Internet's National

[rsilvergun]

it's not even a stretch to put it under the commerce clause. How do you think Title II got created in the first place. Commerce Clause was created for _precisely_ these situtaions (e.g. having a level playing field among states for things that impact the business between states).

Also, if you'll allow me to go off the rails a bit and vent: I'm getting a tad tired of folks hoping NY and CA will pull their fat out of the fire everytime the red states do something boneheaded (and yes, killing NN happened by a Republican and the vote that kills it in the House in a week or two will be along party lines, so let's stop kidding ourselves about which party is killing NN). I swear, I wish we'd have just let the bloody South go.