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Communications Democrats Government Network The Internet United States

Bill To Save Net Neutrality Is 46 Votes Short In US House (arstechnica.com) 213

Posted by BeauHD from the day-late-and-a-dollar-short dept.
Congressional Democrats seeking to reinstate net neutrality rules are still 46 votes short of getting the measure through the House of Representatives. Ars Technica reports: The U.S. Senate voted last month to reverse the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules, with all members of the Democratic caucus and three Republicans voting in favor of net neutrality. A discharge petition needs 218 signatures to force a House vote on the same net neutrality bill, and 218 votes would also be enough to pass the measure. So far, the petition has signatures from 172 representatives, all Democrats. That number hasn't changed in two weeks. The outlook looks grim as Republicans have a 235-193 majority in the House. If you're curious to see which representatives haven't signed the petition, you can view this page maintained by net neutrality group Fight for the Future.
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Bill To Save Net Neutrality Is 46 Votes Short In US House More

Bill To Save Net Neutrality Is 46 Votes Short In US House

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  • Wait for the midterm. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @08:37PM (#56857146)

    Let the people decide. I doubt they'll believe Trump promises again.

    • Re: Wait for the midterm. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @08:49PM (#56857180)

      You grossly underestimate the American publicâ(TM)s stupidity

      • Re: Wait for the midterm. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @09:23PM (#56857292)

        That. The whole FCC fraudulently killed it because the republicans wanted it -- because they're being paid a lot by big ISP who will get to charge you more.

        Republicans do everything against the public's best interest and the same victims are happy to vote for 'em repeatedly. Trump having approval ratings that aren't negative is proof that they're amazingly fucking stupid.

        • Re: Wait for the midterm. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @10:01PM (#56857422) Journal

          That. The whole FCC fraudulently killed it because the republicans wanted it -- because they're being paid a lot by big ISP who will get to charge you more.

          No, not the whole FCC. Just the Republicans on it. [bloomberg.com]

          Republicans do everything against the public's best interest and the same victims are happy to vote for 'em repeatedly. Trump having approval ratings that aren't negative is proof that they're amazingly fucking stupid.

          Trump's overall approval rating has been consistently low compared to other recent presidents. But among Republicans, his approval rating is at 90%. [cnn.com]

          The Republican party is Trump's bitch.

          • Trump's overall approval rating has been consistently low compared to other recent presidents. But among Republicans, his approval rating is at 90%. [cnn.com]

            The Republican party is Trump's bitch.

            Trump's approval rating is the same [newsweek.com] as Obama at the same point in his presidency.

            I didn't know Obama also had consistently low approval ratings compared to other recent presidents - thanks for the info!

            • Re:Thanks for the info (Score:5, Informative)

              by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @10:19PM (#56857482) Journal

              You were saying? [time.com]

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Anonymous Coward

                Your source does not refute his. Given the clear bias displayed, a reasonable assumption is that "one year" is as close as you could get to "this specific week approaching midterms" while showing Trump still lower than Obama.

                He is right, you are not just wrong, but a liar while being wrong.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by dwpro ( 520418 )
              I don't know why we talk about Republican and Democratic percentages so much. 42% of the population identifies as a independent, and since affiliation is not static why even bother comparing over timespans https://news.gallup.com/poll/2... [gallup.com]
              • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                • "I'm an independant" has become the new way of saying "I'm ashamed of my party, but I vote for them anyway." Whenever someone claims they are an independant to me, the first question I ask is, "So, when was the last time you voted for a democrat?"

                  The answer is almost always never.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by dwpro ( 520418 )
                  I respect 538 and I am a subscriber to their politics podcast, but I don't find that article persuasive, especially in this context. Having a preference doesn't make one not indpendent.

                  Did this poll with the 90% repub. approval suss out 'republican leaning' independents and lump them in? It's asinine to make every conversation about politics dichotomous when the largest fraction of the population doesn't strongly identify either way, even if they have a preference, and dramatically over-represents the op

            • Trump's approval rating is the same [newsweek.com] as Obama at the same point in his presidency.

              I didn't know Obama also had consistently low approval ratings compared to other recent presidents - thanks for the info!

              How dare you quote that notable right wing rag, Newsweek!

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by kenh ( 9056 )

              I didn't know Obama also had consistently low approval ratings compared to other recent presidents

              You probably forgot just how wildly popular PPACA, A.K.A. ObamaCare really was at the time. /sarcasm

              • Lets not white wash the actual polls. The PPACA was very popular in the polls. Obamacare was wildly unpopular in those same polls. The fact that those were the same thing seems to have been lost on the average voter.

                • The difference wasn't as large as you make it seem. If I remember correctly, the difference (just by changing the name from "ObamaCare" to "ACA") was something like 10-15%. When asked about specific provisions, though, I think the approval rating was significantly higher.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 )

            Trump's overall approval rating has been consistently low compared to other recent presidents. But among Republicans, his approval rating is at 90%. [cnn.com]

            The Republican party is Trump's bitch.

            Are you trying to persuade anybody? Because, that's not actually how you do it.

            You are actively working for a midterm loss and for Trump's second term.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Torvac ( 691504 )
        its not stupid if you get paid a lot of money to look the other way

    • I doubt they'll believe Trump promises again.

      I don't think they believed them the first time.

      • I doubt they'll believe Trump promises again.

        I don't think they believed them the first time.

        The press takes [Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.
        -- Selena Zito, The Atlantic, Sept 2016

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Frank Burly ( 4247955 )

      If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

      As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

      I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.

      IOW: Call your (R) representative to hear why the free market, Constitution, and Jesus demand everything Comcast lobbyists want.

      And the next time someone says there is no difference between the two parties, ask about Net Neutrality, labor laws, and "crisis pregnancy clinics" to name some partisan issues from the past three days.

      • Re: Wait for the midterm. (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        144 year copyrights.

        • What's crazy about the copyright laws is that they were heavily pushed/supported by Democrats back when the extensions were being done. Total corporate sell-out from what I could see at the time.

    • Re: Wait for the midterm. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Wat? Trump ran on this, and pretty much everything else that he's done.

      Trump has followed through more campaign promises than any president in 40 years.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Let the people decide. I doubt they'll believe Trump promises again.

      No one believed Trump's promises in the first place.

      He was elected because he wasn't Hillary.

      Oh, and he'd appoint judges who place following the Constitution and the law above the desired result. Because when the choice is between "Compelled association/speech violates the First Amendment" or "Public employee unions could lose funding", HOW THE FUCKING HELL DO YOU DECIDE FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS?!?!?!?!

      Do you really think it's OK to violate the First Amendment and compel financial donations from unwillin

      • Since when is anyone compelled to work a union job?

      • Oh, and he'd appoint judges who place following the Constitution and the law above the desired result.

        Especially when the desired result is silly things like equality in representation and protection of the law.

    • One would hope so, but if people are so dumb and naive to put Trump and many of his Republican cronies into office in the first place, they will do so again. Besides that, with a Supreme Court going to be a puppet theater of Trump and Trump claiming that he can pardon himself for anything, there is little chance that anything will change for the better. Adenauer once said "Every country gets the government it deserves!" Talk to those people who still think that Trump & Co do a top shelf job.

  • ... that not even all the Democrats want in on it...

  • Defend it or loose it. That's the game.

    When the vote for Net Neutrality comes get ready for the sock puppet silly flying monkey circus. The game will play out like this:
    1. Create a compelling distraction a week or two before the NN vote
    2. Ensure it is big news
    3. make the news even bigger
    4. sell the drama
    5. make the disaster or kim kardashian's ass an imminent national security threat
    6. whip the electorate into a frenzy, a snowstorm of outraged snowflakes looking to feel powerless, morally superior

  • So far, the petition has signatures from 172 representatives, all Democrats.

    Best believe a reckoning is coming. I'm old enough to remember when the Republicans thought they had a "permanent majority" They were swept out thanks to their own overreach.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]

    A shift is due, and it's going to be a big one.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      Wapo election prognostication... You people really never learn do you?

      • Wapo election prognostication... You people really never learn do you?

        Wapo election prognostication... You people really never learn do you?

        Well, in this case, the Wapo election prognostication is from 2007, and they were talking about the 2006 election, when Republicans were swept out of power. So I suppose you can say that it was prognostication in reverse, or maybe, just pointing out what had already happened.

        You're going to have to understand how time works. See, 2007 will almost always come after 2006 and before 2008. And in case you have learned history from Breitbar

  • Conversion rate (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChromeAeonuim ( 1026946 ) on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @09:51PM (#56857400)
    According to this [theverge.com], the average telecom bribe (or campaign contribution or lobby gift or whatever you want to call it) was about $145,000 for members of the House, slightly more on average for the Republicans who are the party opposing net neutrality. That means the conversion of votes to dollars is 46 votes = $6.8 million. That's how much we're short. I like when votes are listed both number and dollars.

    • Re:Conversion rate (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday June 28, 2018 @04:46AM (#56858362)
      Campaign contributions typically favor the party in power [opensecrets.org] (scroll down to the historical party split and historical average contributions), which is currently Republicans. A fact conveniently omitted by journalists who cherry-pick data to try to make the party they oppose look like bad guys.

      Historically, telecom contributions have slightly favored the Democrats. The only reason Democrats are making a fuss about net neutrality is because they consider it to be an issue they can leverage for votes. If they truly believed in net neutrality on principle, they could've easily passed it during Obama's first term when they held the Presidency and both branches of Congress with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

      The problem has always been local governments granting monopolies for cable and phone service. Both parties are complicit in this and neither seems willing to change it. Passing net neutrality is putting on a band-aid to hide festering gangrene caused by these government-granted monopolies these telecom companies enjoy. A way to placate the voters by pretending to be on their side, while making sure the monopolies awarded to their campaign contributors (the telecom companies) continue undisturbed.
      • when they controlled the House and Senate, and even then it was a tenuous grasp. During that 2 years they passed Obamacare. They needed every ounce of political capital they had to get pre-existing coverage through.

        The problem we have is that Rural voters are disproportionately powerful thanks to our Senate. 1 voter in Montana has 42 times as much representation as a voter in California. This is by design. The people who wrote our constitution were wealthy landowners living in rural areas. They wanted

      • Historically, telecom contributions have slightly favored the Democrats. The only reason Democrats are making a fuss about net neutrality is because they consider it to be an issue they can leverage for votes. If they truly believed in net neutrality on principle, they could've easily passed it during Obama's first term when they held the Presidency and both branches of Congress with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

        Not that I disagree with your first two points, but there are other legitimate reasons for not passing legislation for it in 2009-2010. One, at the time, Network Neutrality was more generally assumed to be the natural state of the Internet, so they wouldn't think there was a need for explicit legislation. Two, they assumed at the time that the FCC already had the authority to enact such rules, so again, they didn't feel there was a need for explicit legislation.

        I don't know how many Democrats in Congress

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pots ( 5047349 )

        Historically, telecom contributions have slightly favored the Democrats.

        How historical are you going in order to make this claim? Net Neutrality has only been a partisan issue for... what? Less that ten years. The FCC was still trying to compromise back in 2010 with it's "third way" policy. Going full-on partisanship is a tactic that the ISPs adopted when their other efforts failed. This particular issue is one that's easier to trace to corporate influence than many other issues for this reason.

        Also, this bullshit needs to stop:

        If they truly believed in net neutrality on principle, they could've easily passed it during Obama's first term when they held the Presidency and both branches of Congress with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

        The Democrats never had the ability to pass any

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      According to the same report you cited, the Democrats accepted $46M in bribe(s) (or campaign contribution or lobby gift or whatever you want to call it) to the Republican's near $56M, a difference likely influenced more by the fact that Republicans controlled the House (thus had more seated party members than the Democrats) during the period considered (1989-2017) than anything else.

  • What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by damn_registrars ( 1103043 ) <damn.registrars@gmail.com> on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @09:52PM (#56857404) Homepage Journal
    Gerrymandering has just been legalized. The SCOTUS is about to shift even further to the right and for a longer time frame. The only way net neutrality will happen for anyone who currently lives in the US is if they either move to another country or if their state leaves the country. The bill might as well be shredded tonight.

    • The federal courts don't usually weigh in on federal regulations unless there is a direct constitutional question, and I mean *direct*

      The idea being it's an area for experts to hash out minutiae, and judges aren't the people who should be deciding acceptable limits for trans fats, or what salmon fishing quotas should be, or how internet traffic should be managed.

    • Gerrymandering has just been legalized.

      It's been around for decades. Practiced by both parties.

      • Gerrymandering has just been legalized.

        It's been around for decades. Practiced by both parties.

        Previously we could challenge it in the courts. Now the SCOTUS has officially given their stamp of approval for this inversion of democracy. Voters might never again get to chose their own representative so much as the opposite.

        The question is whether or not this will finally give the wealthy liberal states the cajones to declare independence so the conservative experiment can more quickly reach its own logical conclusion. If this happens in slow motion instead we are looking at the beginning of the

    • Gerrymandering has just been legalized. The SCOTUS is about to shift even further to the right and for a longer time frame.

      It will shift more to the right without Kennedy, but not as much as you might think. Kennedy usually voted for the conservative position on most cases, but he was capable of every now and then swinging the other way. He was basically the least conservative of the 5 judges considered to be conservative but he was still fairly conservative. Roberts will take his place as the swing vote, being a guy who usually votes conservative but every now and then makes a vote with the 4 liberals that nobody expected.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by bigpat ( 158134 )

      Gerrymandering has just been legalized.

      Gerrymandering has been legal for a long long time... It shouldn't be. The Supreme Court and the lower courts have come as close as they have ever come to saying that party should not be used as a criteria in creating political districts... But they didn't.

      We need a simple rule that says that political affiliation should not be used to draw political district lines, so when we see these crazy geographically gerrymandered districts the courts can reject them unless the states can prove that they were based

    • in the hopes that the people in those Gerrymandered districts come to their senses and vote the bums out.

  • Alternative Units (Score:5, Funny)

    by dohzer ( 867770 ) on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @10:03PM (#56857434)

    Can someone tell me how many dollars 46 votes converts to? I can't work with these the American Imperial units.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Can someone tell me how many dollars 46 votes converts to? I can't work with these the American Imperial units.

      Roughly 1.8 million pats of butter per vote.

    • with a challenger. Figure $1-$2 million each, or around $80 million total. If you were't competing with AT&T & Comcast in a bidding war it's cheap as heck. You can buy off a a House rep for $50k and a Senator for under $200k. It's actually one of the best investments in America, as far as return on investment goes.

    • Point of order: Americans don't use Imperial units and never have. The American colonies broke away prior to the switch to Imperial units, so we derived our United States Customary units [wikipedia.org] from the then-in-use English units [wikipedia.org]. Several decades later (in the 1820s) the Brits overhauled their own units, resulting in the creation of Imperial units. As such, both US Customary and Imperial units share a common heritage in English units, but neither is based on the other.

      Because they share that common heritage, there

  • Has there ever been a clearer sign that the general populace truly does not want what the government was pushing here? Even well intentioned controls over the internet will end in tears, and the *34 pages* of regulations we had from the FCC were in no way well-intentioned compared to the heartfelt and simple statements that people give when they say they want net neutrality.

    What you were getting was never the Net Neutrality you all wanted, it was corporate internet control dressed in an Edgar style skin-su

    • I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The general populace overwhelmingly supports Net Neutrality -- it has tremendous bipartisan support. What we don't want is them pushing it back.

  • ...as is most any news that helps keep the gov't the H out of yet another corner of our lives. That gov't is best that governs least...

  • The US House of Representatives (Score:4, Interesting)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @11:28PM (#56857666)
    is not relevant, they pass hundreds of bills. Most all die in the US Senate. In the US Senate it takes 60 votes to decide to talk about a bill from the house. Most all bills from the house are never brought to the floor. The 100 senators agree on almost nothing. Heck I can not even recall the last time America even had a budget.
    Gotta love it, no budget the government just goes and spends what ever they want. Bad karma for the young, the gravy train will come to an end some time.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

    • By your reasoning, the Senate is also irrelevant. Or did you forget that *both* houses must pass a bill in order for it to become law?

  • MUH FEELS (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If it's good for Google, do you really think you're not getting scroogled?

  • Nextdoor is a great tool for informing your neighbors that the local US House Rep (in my case, Johnson) is taking $200k+ in 'donations' from the providers to keep their shitty internet connections on. My area has had frequent disconnects and outages...so now Johnson is going to get all the blame for it because he supports a shitty internet.

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