Election Produces More Fodder For Net Neutrality Debate
November 4, 2010
| 10:32 AM
While most voters said the economy was their primary concern when they went to the polls Tuesday, it hasn't stopped stakeholders on both sides of the open Internet debate from noting which lawmakers who supported their side won or loss.
The latest salvo in the post-election net neutrality spin battle came from net neutrality proponent Free Press, which noted that at least 25 House incumbents who signed a letter from Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, urging FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to abandon his proposal to re-classify broadband as a "telecommunications service" lost their bids for re-election. The move is aimed at giving the FCC the authority, which was put in doubt by a federal appeals court ruling in April, it needs to implement rules that would bar broadband providers from discriminating against Internet content.
Two more incumbents listed by the group on Wednesday who signed the letter were in races too close to call. One, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., had a slim lead over his GOP opponent, while Rep. Dan Maffei, D-N.Y, was narrowly behind as of Thursday. At the same time, Free Press noted that all 32 House incumbents who signed a letter in support of the FCC's reclassification proposal were re-elected, although most of these represent heavily Democratic districts.
NETCompetition.org Chairman Scott Cleland noted Wednesday that 95 of the candidates who signed a pledge from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee calling on them to back net neutrality rules lost in Tuesday's elections. They included the pledge's high-profile champion Democrat Ann McLane Kuster who lost her race to former GOP Rep. Charlie Bass in New Hampshire 2nd congressional district.
Cleland argued that efforts to make net neutrality a campaign issue show that supporters of open Internet rules are a small minority. "Free Press's long and loud claim that net neutrality was an important political issue to the American people has been exposed as completely untrue," Cleland wrote in blog post Wednesday.
Free Press Managing Director Craig Aaron dismissed Cleland's claims, saying that net neutrality is "hardly something that determined the outcome of those races." He said many of the candidates who signed the pledge were facing uphill battles.
Categories:
Net Neutrality
Join the Discussion
The National Journal Group has the right (but not the obligation) to monitor the comments and to remove any materials it deems inappropriate.
Comments powered by Disqus