Updated 2:28 pm ET, Thursday, November 10
The Senate on Thursday voted 52 to 46, with 2 abstaining, against Republican-proposed legislation that sought to repeal the “network neutrality” rules instituted by the Federal Communications Commission in December 2010.
The votes fell entirely along party lines, with all the Senate Democrats voting “nay” on the resolution, S.J. Res. 6, except for Sen. Dan Inouye (D-HI), who did not vote.
Nearly all of the Republican Senators voted in favor of the legislation with the exception of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who didn’t vote.
The vote followed Wednesday’s intense debate , including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA).
McConnell and Republican colleagues argued the FCC shouldn’t be allowed to regulate the Internet and that such regulations would kill jobs. The Democrats contended that regulation was necessary to keep the Internet equitable for all users and prevent the kind of ISP throttling that had been done by Comcast in 2007 against BitTorrent users.
That was to be expected given the fact that 42 Republican Senators had co-sponsored Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s joint resolution “Disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to regulating the Internet and broadband industry practices,” which was introduced in February 2011.
The White House too wasn’t surprised, with sources yesterday telling TPM that it was unlikely that the vote would come out in favor of the legislation. Still, the White House had preemptively released a statement saying that President Obama would veto the legislation were it to somehow pass the Senate.
The Republican controlled House in April voted 240 to 179 in favor of the House version of the legislation, with 13 representatives not voting. In that case, six Democrats crossed party lines to vote in favor of the legislation while two Republicans voted against it.
But without the necessary Senate votes, it seems as though the Republican effort to repeal net neturality, remains, at least for now, dead in the water.
Late update: White House spokesperson Amy Brundage released the following statement to TPM endorsing the Senate’s vote against the measure, and taking a jab at Republicans for playing politics with the issue:
The President applauds the Senate for rejecting legislation that would have gone against the principle of an Open Internet. We must ensure that we are continuing the system that has made such important contributions to the American economy and American society.
The FCC’s rule in this area was balanced and fair, building on bipartisan principals established under President Bush and supported by a broad range of consumer groups and businesses.
It is ironic that the Republicans keep talking about how uncertainty is hurting the economy when they are pushing political votes like this one that that only add to that uncertainty.
Second late update: The FCC has released a statement to TPM, similarly embracing the Senate’s vote:
“Today’s vote is a win for consumers and businesses. Since its adoption in 2010, the Commission’s open Internet framework has brought certainty and predictability, stimulating increased innovation and investment across the broadband economy, including in mobile networks and apps. Tens of billions of dollars have already been invested in 2011 in wired and wireless broadband networks, a significant increase from the previous year before the Order was adopted. The mobile apps economy has created tens of thousands of new jobs in the past two years and continues to grow. Any effort to disrupt or unsettle that certainty, which has been widely supported by industry, will only undermine innovation and investment in this space.”
The network neutrality rules are set to go into effect November 20.
