"The fight ahead is not
going to be easy, but victory is within reach."
The open internet scored a
huge victory on Wednesday, but you wouldn't know it
by watching America's major corporate television networks.
Thanks to weeks of
sustained grassroots pressure in the form of 16 million emails, over a million
phone calls, and nationwide demonstrations both online and off, three
Republicans voted with the Senate Democratic caucus on Wednesday to
block the GOP-controlled FCC's net neutrality repeal, clearing a crucial hurdle
on the path to saving the web from the greed of
the telecom industry.
In a statement applauding
the 52-47
vote, Free Press Action Fund president Craig Aaron said the Senate's
passage of the so-called resolution of disapproval is "a historic win for
supporters of net neutrality and a stinging rebuke to the army of phone-and
cable-company lobbyists and lackeys trying to take away our internet
freedom."
"Today the Senate has
taken a giant step toward unwinding the least-popular policy decision in the
history of the FCC," Aaron added.
Despite those and similar
pronouncements by organizers about the significance of the victory, the news
was virtually, if not completely, ignored by
major cable outlets like MSNBC and CNN, respectively owned by
Comcast and Time Warner—two of the major corporate powers lobbying against the
CRA's passage.
Meanwhile, as activists emphasized the
importance of celebrating this crucial win given the tireless
grassroots effort that produced it, open internet advocates and pro-net
neutrality lawmakers noted that the same level of grassroots pressure—and
likely even more—will be necessary to carry the resolution through the House of
Representatives.
"The fight ahead is not
going to be easy, but victory is within reach," declared Evan Greer,
deputy director of Fight for the Future.
"In the House, we'll need
218 lawmakers to sign on to a 'discharge petition' in order to force a vote
past leadership to the floor," Greer observed. "That means we'll need
to convince all the Democrats, and about 25 Republicans, to support the CRA.
And the clock is ticking — if the CRA resolution doesn't get a vote this year,
it dies when the new Congress comes into session."
Just minutes after the final
Senate vote was cast, advocacy groups began encouraging Americans to pressure
their representatives to back net neutrality by signing on to the discharge petition
Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) plans to file Thursday morning. The measure currently
has the support of 161 House Democrats.
Michael Copps, former FCC
Commissioner and special adviser for Common Cause, said the House must
"hear the strong voice of the American people demanding an open internet
and saying 'No!' to the telecom and cable monopolies" and follow in the
Senate's footsteps.
"Voters are watching and
they will remember come November how their representatives voted," Copps
said. "We urge the House of Representatives to do its job and pass this
resolution to restore net neutrality."
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