Sen. Durbin Uses Blog To Craft Broadband Bill

By Aliya Sternstein

In a role reversal, Sen. Dick Durbin has been blogging about bloggers all week. Since Tuesday, the Illinois Democrat has been conversing with the "netroots" on the liberal blog Open Left to help him write high-speed Internet legislation.

"Today I'm writing to invite you to participate in an experiment -- an interactive approach to drafting legislation on one of the most significant public policy questions today: What should be America's national broadband strategy?" Durbin wrote on Sunday.

Each night, Durbin began his online discussions by asking for legislative proposals that touch on some of his core principles, like achieving universal, affordable broadband coverage. Should the four-day series prove fruitful, Durbin wrote, "it may become the way lawmakers approach drafting bills on other issues like education, health care and foreign policy."

At the outset, Open Left and Durbin's office invited the major telecommunications and cable companies to participate. All of them declined, but on Wednesday, representatives from AT&T's Hands Off the Internet and the AT&T/Verizon Communications-backed Latino Coalition joined the online discussion.

Conservative blogger Robert Bluey of the Heritage Foundation also took note of the development. He wrote on his personal blog, RobertBluey.com, that while it is admirable for Durbin to involve the netroots, "I think it's incredibly short-sighted to have a one-sided conversation with just liberals."

In fact, I think labels are more problematic than useful in today's environment. For example, in supporting the right of individuals to express themselves effectively through responsive local governments, I consider myself a stronger advocate of individual liberty than certain self-styled libertarians who fail to recognize that giant communications providers are arguably a greater threat to individual liberty today than big government.

In any event, America's global competitiveness should not be viewed as a liberal v. conservative, public v. private, or any other kind of "versus" issue. We all have a huge stake in getting this right, and we should be debating ideas rather than ideologies.