Sen. John Tune (R-SD) doesn't want to wait around for the new FCC to kill net neutrality, or perhaps it’s that his big telecom overlords don't want to wait. So he's moving forward with trying to craft legislation.
“Sen. Thune is open to immediately working with his colleagues on legislation if there is a serious readiness on the other side of the aisle to come to the table,” Commerce Committee spokesman Frederick Hill said Friday in an email to Morning Consult. “To date, Democrats haven’t been quite ready to sit down.”
At the same time, Hill added that action from the FCC action could lead to “new engagement” from Democrats in a legislative effort, and Thune (R-S.D.) is “all for that.” […]
Many Senate Democrats have been steadfast in their desire to preserve the net neutrality rules and the enforcement power given to the FCC. But with little leverage in Congress and at the agency, those senators have said constituents should flood lawmakers’ offices with calls and the FCC with comments to voice their support for the Open Internet order.
Thune wants to pretend like he's supporting net neutrality by pushing legislation that "would codify certain principles that base the idea of net neutrality into law, such as the prohibition of paid prioritization and blocking and throttling online content." But he would stop short of the open internet order that's still in effect, essentially reclassifying broadband as a utility and giving the FCC the power to actually enforce the rules.
Senate Democrats are absolutely right—they can refuse to work with Thune, and they can filibuster bad legislation. But they need us. They need the millions of people who worked to get the open internet rules in the first place to demand that the FCC preserves them.
So let's give FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the FCC a reminder of what getting 6 million comments on an issue is like. Call or write the FCC and tell them they can't sneak our open internet away.