Markey: All 49 Dems Will Co-Sponsor Net Reg Rollback

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) says that all 49 Democratic senators plan to co-sponsor his Congressional Review Act resolution to nullify the FCC's Dec. 14 vote to roll back net regs. He points out that now that moderate Republican Susan Collins has added her support, only one more vote is needed in the Senate for reversing FCC chairman Ajit Pai's Restoring Internet Freedom order.

Markey last week secured enough votes last week to insure there would at least be a vote on the measure.

But it would have to pass the House as well, where Republicans still hold a solid majority, and will until at least early next year.

“There is a tsunami of Congressional and grassroots support to overturn the FCC’s partisan and misguided decision on net neutrality,” said Markey (D-MA), who is leading the Senate effort. "Republicans now have a clear choice -- be on the right side of history and stand with the American people who support a free and open internet, or hold hands with the special interests who want to control the internet for their own profit. I urge them to join the majority of Americans, embrace the bipartisanship of net neutrality, and support this resolution.”

Markey has been one of the strongest defenders of former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's decisoin to reclassify ISPs under Title II common carrier regs and the 2015 Open Internet order the Pai FCC rolled back on a straight party line vote that mirrored the Democrats' vote to impose Title II regs.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.