Net Neutrality Petition Facing Last Chance in House of Reps Today

The prospect of a seemingly inevitable government shutdown had the United States congress transfixed on Friday, but the House of Representatives also faced another deadline of midnight on December 21—the deadline to gather 37 signatures of House reps needed to force a vote on reviving net neutrality rules. As AVN.com has covered extensively, net neutrality rules guarantee that the internet is treated the same as any public utility, with equal access for all users to any resource online. In other words, internet service providers may not slow or block traffic to, for example, a porn site while allowing users easy access to Netflix. One year ago, the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the Obama-era net neutrality regulations that had been in place since 2015, a repeal that finally took effect on June 11. But in May, using a “discharge petition,” Senate Democrats forced a vote on reinstating the rules—a resolution which passed 52-47. The House circulated its own petition to force a vote, but over the past seven months have fallen 37 signatures short of the 218 required to make the net neutrality vote happen—with 16 of those missing signatures belonging to Democrats. Only one Republican, Mike Coffman of Colorado, has signed on. “The fight for net neutrality is far from over, but time is running out for members of Congress to make decision: do they want to go down in history as the corrupt politicians who rubber stamped the repeal of net neutrality?” said Evan Greer of the pro-net neutrality activist group Fight for the Future in a statement Thursday. “Or will they sign on to the CRA discharge petition and show that they’re willing to put their constituents’ basic rights ahead of their corporate donors.” Last week, Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon reversed her refusal to sign the petition, after a flood of calls to her office by net neutrality advocates. But even after signing, Scanlon dismissed the petition as largely symbolic, according to Gizmodo.  “In recent days, my office has received calls requesting that I sign a discharge petition addressing the Trump administration’s rollback of Obama era Net Neutrality rules,” Scanlon said. “This discharge petition has been stalled for months, long before I was sworn in, and has no chance of making it through the current Republican majority in the House.” But the Pennsylvania Democrat added that in the next session of congress, in which Democrats will have the majority they won in the November midterm elections, she would join the “legislative effort” to restore net neutrality. Photo By Diliff / Wikimedia Commons