FFTF Pledges District Call-Outs for Net Neutrality Bill No-Shows

Fight for the Future said it is giving legislators, Republican and Democrat, until Friday to sign on to the Save the Internet Act or else.

The "or else" is that it will flood their districts with texts and emails calling them out for their absence from the bill.

The Save the Internet Act, which was the subject of a Hill hearing Tuesday (March 12), nullifies the FCC's Restoring Internet Freedom Order and restores the 2015 Open Internet Order and its title II-based rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization, plus the general conduct standard to get at other conduct that does not fit the other three categories.

To help the public identify who is on board with the legislation, FFTF has updated its online congressional scoreboard.

At press time that scoreboard showed numerous Democrats with either the red brand of "against net neutrality" or the grey brand of "no stance," all of whom, in additional to the majority of Republicans who don't support the new bill, face "a flood of constituent pressure to their offices" starting Friday.

At that Hill hearing on the bill, Rep. Bill Long (R-Mo.) opined about the tweeted "attacks" from groups like Free Press and Fight for the Future against legislators professing to want to find bipartisan solutions.

But Democrats are clearly in FFTF's sites as well. The warning came a day after the group launched a crowd-funding campaign to put up a billboard calling out Democratic Sen. Krysten Sinema (Ariz.), whom they identify as the only senate Democrat not to sponsor the bill.

The bill will need all the Democrats and a few Republicans to pass that body, though it may have enough votes to pass the Democratically controlled House.

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.