VICTORY! U.S. House of Representatives finally votes to restore net neutrality

Take that, Ajit Pai!

The US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives today vot­ed to restore Oba­ma-era net neu­tral­i­ty rules, approv­ing a bill that would reverse the Trump-era FCC’s repeal of rules that for­mer­ly pro­hib­it­ed block­ing, throt­tling, and paid pri­or­i­ti­za­tion. The vote was 232–190, with 231 Democ­rats and one Repub­li­can sup­port­ing the bill, and 190 Repub­li­cans vot­ing against it. Four Democ­rats and six Repub­li­cans did not vote.

Mitch McConnell (who has tak­en hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars in con­tri­bu­tions from com­pa­nies like Ver­i­zon, Com­cast, and AT&T) has already declared the leg­is­la­tion “dead on arrival” in the Sen­ate, to the sur­prise of pret­ty much nobody. Even if the Sen­ate were to pass the bill, Trump would veto it.

The soon­est a net neu­tral­i­ty bill could be signed into law is 2021, assum­ing Repub­li­cans lose con­trol of the Sen­ate and the White House.

Still, today’s action by the House is his­toric and sig­nif­i­cant. Repub­li­cans had con­trolled the House going all the way back to Jan­u­ary of 2011 before the begin­ning of this year, and had stymied Inter­net free­dom bills from being con­sid­ered at all. This vote marks the first time the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (now under Demo­c­ra­t­ic man­age­ment) has tak­en a stand on net neutrality.

“Net neu­tral­i­ty is a bipar­ti­san pri­or­i­ty for the Amer­i­can peo­ple,” said Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi. “As Mr. Chair­man Doyle said, a full eighty-six per­cent oppose the Trump assault on net neu­tral­i­ty, includ­ing eighty-two per­cent of Repub­li­cans, outside.

“Young peo­ple, in par­tic­u­lar, get it. This is about their jobs and their futures.”

“With the Save The Inter­net Act, Democ­rats are hon­or­ing the will of the Amer­i­can peo­ple. We are restor­ing pro­tec­tions so we can stop unjust dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices by ISPs — that would be Inter­net Ser­vice Providers — that try to throt­tle con­sumers’ brows­ing speed, block their inter­net access and increase their costs. Throt­tle their speed, block their access, increase their cost.”

“Sup­port­ing this bill means sup­port­ing our democ­ra­cy, ensur­ing that our voic­es – the voic­es of the pub­lic are heard, that their will is respect­ed and that the inter­net remains free and open to all,” Pelosi added.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was a par­ty line vote, as fol­lows:

Vot­ing Aye: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Susan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, Den­ny Heck (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrad­er (OR)

Vot­ing Nay: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA), Greg Walden (OR), Mike Simp­son and Russ Fulcher (ID), Greg Gian­forte (MT), Don Young (AK)

No Democ­rats vot­ed against the bill, although four missed the vote. One Repub­li­can (just one!) coura­geous­ly vot­ed for it: Bill Posey of Florida.

Posey has not, as far as we can tell, issued a state­ment explain­ing his vote, although he has offered open mind­ed com­ments in past mes­sages to con­stituents, includ­ing this one shared and dis­cussed on Red­dit.

Posey’s aye makes H.R. 1644 bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion (it only takes one!) We con­grat­u­late the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on pas­sage of this much-need­ed bill, and look for­ward to see­ing it pass again in the next Con­gress when there are hope­ful­ly pro-Net Neu­tral­i­ty majori­ties in both chambers.