Washington State is primed to become the first state to have acting net neutrality laws protecting consumers from all ISPs, as Arstechnica reports, the state’s Senate voted 35-14 to pass the bill into law on Tuesday.
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The Washington state legislature has approved a net neutrality law that applies to all wired and wireless Internet providers in the state and prohibits blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.
The bill comes in response to the Federal Communications Commission decision in December 2017 to scrap federal net neutrality rules. The state bill still needs the signature of Governor Jay Inslee, who previously pledged to enforce net neutrality "under our own authority and under our own laws," calling it "a free speech issue as well as a business development issue."
The bill just needs Governor Jay Inslee’s signature, and if his statements on net neutrality are any indication, this should not be a big hurdle to overcome.
As Geekwire points out however, Republicans like Ajit Pai believe in state’s rights as long as states do the bidding of Republican conservative overlords, and there are fights still to win.
Washington state’s net neutrality law is likely to face legal challenges. The FCC’s official repeal of net neutrality, which was published in the Federal Register last week, preempts states and local jurisdictions from passing de facto net neutrality laws. The FCC said it would “preempt any state or local measures that would effectively impose rules or requirements that we have repealed or decided to refrain from imposing in this order.” That includes laws that would require disclosure of business practices from internet providers, like the one moving through the Washington state legislature.”
Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson is also preparing a legal challengeto the FCC’s decision, as part of a coalition with attorneys general from 21 other states and the District of Columbia.
What makes this a big deal is that both the state senate and house voted this into law. Montana made waves when the Democratic governor used a state executive order to push for the enforcement of net neutrality rules, and Nebraska is set to make the fight public in its state house after bringing a similar bill to the table in January.