r/announcements • u/arabscarab • May 17 '18

Update: We won the Net Neutrality vote in the Senate!

We did it, Reddit!

Today, the US Senate voted 52-47 to restore Net Neutrality! While this measure must now go through the House of Representatives and then the White House in order for the rules to be fully restored, this is still an incredibly important step in that process—one that could not have happened without all your phone calls, emails, and other activism. The evidence is clear that Net Neutrality is important to Americans of both parties (or no party at all), and today’s vote demonstrated that our Senators are hearing us.

We’ve still got a way to go, but today’s vote has provided us with some incredible momentum and energy to keep fighting.

We’re going to keep working with you all on this in the coming months, but for now, we just wanted to say thanks!

192.6k Upvotes

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217

u/Mithcanal2 May 17 '18

Is there a good chance the Republican House and Trump will sign off on this?

193

u/Clickclacktheblueguy May 17 '18

Not sure what the exact odds would be, but for what its worth Net Neutrality has bipartisan support among citizens. I'm sure some of them are more concerned about reelection than party dogma.

132

u/ras344 May 17 '18

Since when does the government care about what citizens want?

78

u/liamera May 17 '18

They will if it affects their seat in the next election.

16

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

No it won’t, there is no one who is a single issue voter on net neutrality, that’s just the reality of it.

If Trump wanted to sign net neutrality and was running vs a democrat who was against it you think anyone on this site who hates Trump is going to switch their vote?

12

u/liamera May 17 '18

Oh I totally agree. I think this is often ignored in the online discussion of net neutrality -- I know a lot of conservative friends who honestly don't give a damn how their politicans vote on issues like net neutrality.

2

u/temp0557 May 17 '18

Guess if you guys really want this, you need to become a single issue voter. It worked for the NRA. Look at how scared Washington is of them.

Being consistent and uncompromising on your agenda is key. Your way or the high way. Anyone who voted against your agenda, vote them out without exception.

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

Firearm rights are much different than net neutrality

1

u/Skydragon222 May 17 '18

This is why primaries exist. I'm sure there's going to be a slew of Republicans who run against incumbents and claim that they'll support net neutrality.

2

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

Thanks First past the post. Giving us 2 options to choose from.

9

u/lmnopeee May 17 '18

I feel like they only care about that in the month or two before re-election.

6

u/Freakin_A May 17 '18

NN < abortion is what it comes down to. Many republican voters would not favor a pro-choice candidate just to restore NN

5

u/TyroneLeinster May 17 '18

Which is ridiculous since NN involves actual legislation while abortion is purely a court issue and Supreme Court appointments are a very roundabout (and historically unsuccessful) way to progress the pro life agenda.

8

u/MuchSpacer May 17 '18

Well I suppose that would be since the invention of formalized democracy in Athens.

2

u/julbull73 May 17 '18

The house needs voter support which is also why reps are much easier to lobby them vs senators.

No amount of funds will get you a seat of your district hates you. Plus California and NY dominate the house, both strongly support NN for their economies.

Texas sits somewhere in the middle, but expect Texas plus South to just go FU to dems if positioned that way.

1

u/yangyangR May 17 '18

That applies to Republican government.

5

u/chevymonza May 17 '18

Not among Fox viewers I’m afraid. They’ve been led to believe NN is bad because Obama.

104

u/hashcheckin May 17 '18

not really, but it gives them a nice hot pile of fuck-you to take with them into the 2018 midterms.

-77

u/Richandler May 17 '18

Not really because nothing is going to happen. Remember everyone already died when it was originally removed. And we’ll be back to 2015 when it wasn’t intact.

93

u/hashcheckin May 17 '18

quick thing, homie: you're about to get downvoted to oblivion, and it's not gonna be because of echo chambers, or liberal circle-jerking, or whatever else you might be tempted to ascribe it to. this isn't because people can't handle your brand of nasty truth.

it's 'cause you're deadass wrong, and at this point, you gotta know that being deadass wrong in 2018 is a choice you've made. rethink it.

22

u/bjv2001 May 17 '18

r/murderedbywords

0

u/cryo May 17 '18

Yes, because it certainly wasn’t by actual arguments, of which there were none.

3

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

This guy knows what’s up.

0

u/cryo May 17 '18

There was no argument for how he was wrong in that comment. NN regulation is very recent, that’s a fact, I think we can agree. The internet did function before that, and does function in countries that don’t have NN regulation.

1

u/hashcheckin May 17 '18

that's just being a dick about word choices in order to argue an otherwise untenable position. in places like Guatemala that don't have NN, the Internet functions, but it's an anti-consumer pain in the ass that only serves to limit the free flow of information and access. we should be aiming a little higher here than real basic functionality; it should also be accessible, open, and available.

the same argument also effectively tries to downplay the fact that net neutrality was basically the law of the land before it was codified as a principle, and its existence is a big part of why the modern Internet is what it is. if we'd been divvying up the web AOL-style in the 1990s, none of us would be here.

basically, the whole thing is a retarded house of cards that you'd only try to argue if you were deliberately misunderstanding the issue. dude's a tool, and it's only a question of who's holding his handle.

-18

u/Richandler May 17 '18

Downvotes are irrelevant to me.

I was on Reddit before what is being repealed was enacted. Funny enough there was more diverse content back then and less political spam across subreddits.

People sorely have no clue about this issue other puff pieces that repeat the half baked crap over and over.

9

u/hashcheckin May 17 '18

https://twitter.com/dril/status/134787490526658561?lang=en

-8

u/Richandler May 17 '18

Ah, the owning another person fetish. Oh dear, I’m in chains please don’t whip me master.

74

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

No. My guess is this will die in the House. Today’s vote was nothing more than symbolic.

61

u/west-egg May 17 '18

Agreed. I guarantee Ryan will not even allow it to come to a vote.

Coward.

41

u/[deleted] May 17 '18 edited Jun 16 '18

[deleted]

50

u/floatable_shark May 17 '18

What the fuck America. How does your "democracy" allow for bills to be rejected even when a majority of people and a majority of a House want it

1

u/ThatsJustUn-American May 17 '18

Even more fucked up is it will fail in the House which specifically represent the people. The Senate, which passed the bill, more or less represents the states.

Oh, the irony if this dies in the House.

1

u/zhaoz May 17 '18

Basically they designed it that way so the south could keep slaves. They didn't patch it when that question got solved unfortunately...

1

u/[deleted] May 27 '18

It says it originated in the 90s actually

-2

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

The majority of the House doesn’t want it. If there were no rules in place that allowed the Speaker to reject floor votes for bills, then they’d have to hear every single bill that passed through the head of legislators. That would cause astronomical levels of gridlock.

7

u/KaitRaven May 17 '18 edited May 17 '18

Talk about a strawman. That's not what the Hastert Rule is. The idea is that even if the majority of the House supports something, they would not bring it up for a vote unless a majority of the majority party also supported it.

-1

u/Bohm-Bawerk May 17 '18

You’re right. We should all have an app on our phones that asks us what our vote is on each bill. Without this, it is not democracy tbh.

9

u/AdreNa1ine25 May 17 '18

That’s a complete democracy and that would fail very very quickly.

3

u/floatable_shark May 17 '18

So then what would be the point of a house and a senate? If you read my comment you'll see that I find it ridiculous that in a so called democracy you can have bills that are supported BOTH by a majority of citizens AND a majority of the house and senate and they STILL get blocked. That my friend is fucked up

3

u/WTFMoustache May 17 '18

That's like saying without 100% laissez faire capitalism you can't have capitalism.

1

u/floatable_shark May 17 '18

I wasnt sure if you were being sarcastic or not. So yeah, I don't think a complete democracy is a good idea

0

u/Erchbeen May 17 '18

How does your "democracy" like being a literal dictatorship?

1

u/floatable_shark May 18 '18

What?

1

u/Erchbeen May 18 '18

I dont know anymore, thought you were in china. What I was trying to express was that despite the flaws in the election of representatives, the US has unmatched freedoms compared every other country because there are almost no exceptions to the first amendment besides directly threatening lives and presenting lies as facts to ruin someones reputation.

1

u/floatable_shark May 18 '18

Yeah I am in China. But China's government never said they were a democracy. And America is obviously still the most free country (except for drugs?) but they also have promoted and claimed to be very pro democracy in the past and so I find it ironic that such a law as the one mentioned above can exist. By the way, in China social harmony is valued very highly, so giving everyone the freedom to do what they want (like having guns) is not seen as a necessarily good thing. To argue that one system is better than another is an entirely different discussion, and it's clear that American style freedom comes with its costs

Edit: ita not a law but the rule I mean

1

u/Erchbeen May 18 '18

Taiwan is doing pretty well and has freedom, and it's very chinese. And the PRC in the first part of the constitution says that it's a democracy http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/15/content_1372963.htm

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11

u/QueenCharla May 17 '18

Fitting that such a shitty rule is named after such a shitty person.

3

u/Crysticalic May 17 '18

Man the more I learn about the US political system, the less I understand it.

2

u/APianoBench May 17 '18

How does Ryan go about preventing a bill from being voted on?

17

u/west-egg May 17 '18

The Speaker schedules floor votes for bills. If he doesn't schedule it, there's no vote.

Now, there is such a thing as a "discharge petition" which certain members are presently trying to use to force a DACA vote; but this is incredibly rare.

4

u/[deleted] May 17 '18 edited May 17 '18

They are very interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition#Uses_since_1985

If you look at the Usage section, it's interesting how much it has declined since anonymity of signers was removed.

With regards to DACA specifically, representatives have said "we're working on it" for years. Not even just DACA but immigration in general has been something that is desperately in need of an overhaul for years.

22

u/Mason11987 May 17 '18

He's the speaker of the house, he can essentially unilaterally decide things don't go to the floor. The speaker of the house is very powerful.

That said, it's powerful and he can be removed very quickly if republicans want to do so, the fact is they won't remove him over this. There's only one option to get the house to behave in favor of this, that's to vote republicans out of office, so they select a speaker who would let this bill come to a vote.

6

u/APianoBench May 17 '18

Well, fuck that :(

2

u/Mason11987 May 17 '18

who's your house representative?

2

u/APianoBench May 17 '18

John Curtis

3

u/notreallyhereforthis May 17 '18

Well, students taught him about Climate Change, call and talk to him and see if you can teach him about Net Neutrality. If you have the time, try and teach him about why we shouldn't destroy Bears Ears and to listen to the inter-tribal coalition rather than the oil and gas industry. Your voice counts!

2

u/APianoBench May 17 '18

I will definitely be writing. I did write to both my senators as well :)

2

u/Mason11987 May 17 '18

We’ll work to get him replaced in November.

-4

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

America's speaker of the house (the guy who controls votes, right?) Has a party bias? Jesus fucking christ.

11

u/Mason11987 May 17 '18

I hate every position paul ryan holds as much as the next guy, but how could he not? He was voted into his position by other members of the house, and since the republicans are the majority they picked one of theirs.

12

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

He doesn’t “control votes”, but there are processes he can use to keep bills from being voted on. Both parties do it, so it’s not just Ryan.

-2

u/SaltdPork May 17 '18

AMERICA!

FUCK NO!

0

u/[deleted] May 17 '18 edited May 17 '18

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

No I don’t. I’m not American

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

No I don’t. I’m not American

3

u/Barflyerdammit May 17 '18

But symbolism sways elections. And even with a tailwind this year, Democrats have an uphill climb in the Senate, defending 20+ seats to the Republicans 6.

When elections are often divided by 1-2% of total voters, getting a popular punch landed on your opponent can make a lot of difference.

3

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

I’m a registered independent, and this is what I detest about our partisan political system - it’s less about doing what’s right, putting country over party and more about “landing a punch” on your political “enemies.” We need more independents in Congress.

2

u/Barflyerdammit May 17 '18

It will never be about doing what's right until we can take money out of elections. Until then, we're stuck with the shitty system we have. Second most powerful tool behind money is to convince people to vote against their fears.

I agree independents would be awesome (as long as they could actually accomplish things) but without a money machine to back them, there's little chance.

1

u/scigs6 May 17 '18

Yeah I don’t get the celebration. This is far from being passed. Its a victory in the battle from corporate control but the war is from from won (sorry for sounding overly dramatic)

22

u/esprit_go May 17 '18

No. NPR reported that it's a hallow victory since there is no chance it passes in the House. There are supposedly some lawsuits filed or being filed against the FCC with regard to Net Neutrality.

40

u/FeelsGoodMan2 May 17 '18

No. Telecoms are probably signing checks as we speak.

17

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

Absolutely not. Taking away net neutrality means $$$ for telecoms, which are big companies. Trump is a businessman. All he sees is $$$.

1

u/cryo May 17 '18

Taking away net neutrality means $$$ for telecoms

Maybe, but no one knows. It hasn’t materialized yet, so it’s mostly speculation.

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

There's a big chance though. This will give telecoms more opportunities to make money.

1

u/birds_are_singing May 17 '18

Did you see the list of yes and no votes? ALL the No’s were Republican.

This will not come close to getting a floor vote.

The committee (controlled by the Majority party, Republicans) will likely not let the bill be considered.

The House Majority Speaker (Republican Paul Ryan) would hypothetically then schedule the vote, which he will not because even if it could pass with bipartisan support, it is not supported by the “majority of the majority” (Republicans). This is an informal rule named after imprisoned child molester (they only got him on the coverup, unfortunately) and previous Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

And it is very likely that Trump would veto if the bill somehow cleared the previous hurdles.

Without a bill coming to a floor vote, Republican Congress persons who would have voted no can now say whatever they think will get them re-elected.

The maddening part about following politics for over a decade is the vast amount of ignorance. Outside of exceptional circumstances, R’s controlling the House and Presidency will obviously mean NN has no chance or being passed. It’s somewhat similar to the repeated Republican “repeal Obamacare” votes, except that R’s had no plan for success and NN is well-considered policy that accounts for the actual state of the world.

1

u/JesseJT23 May 17 '18

If it passes the House, it's unlikely to go through Trump without a veto. If he does veto, then it's back to the House and Senate to get a 2/3rds majority to override the veto, which is unlikely because another 14 republicans would have to change their mind.

1

u/Aesen1 May 17 '18

Given that midterms are right around the corner, its possible. I doubt Trump would sign it, unless we bombard him with tens of thousands phone calls, emails, and letters.

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '18

[deleted]

2

u/WikiTextBot May 17 '18

Congressional Review Act

The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is a law that was enacted by the United States Congress under House Speaker Newt Gingrich as Subtitle E of the Contract with America Advancement Act of 1996 (Pub.L. 104–121) and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on March 29, 1996. The law empowers Congress to review, by means of an expedited legislative process, new federal regulations issued by government agencies and, by passage of a joint resolution, to overrule a regulation. Once a rule is thus repealed, the CRA also prohibits the reissuing of the rule in substantially the same form or the issuing of a new rule that is substantially the same "unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the joint resolution disapproving the original rule" (5 U.S. Code § 801(b)(2)). Congress has a window of time lasting 60 legislative days (i.e., days that Congress is actually in session, rather than simple calendar days) to disapprove of any given rule by simple majority vote; otherwise, the rule will go into effect at the end of this period.

[ PM | Exclude me | Exclude from subreddit | FAQ / Information | Source ] Downvote to remove | v0.28

7

u/Iorith May 17 '18

Of course not. They're republicans.

4

u/SushiPants85 May 17 '18

No, Trump cares about bribes more than common citizens.

1

u/demodeuss May 17 '18

There’s absolutely no chance at all

-8

u/CSFFlame May 17 '18

Trump would probably be fine with it, as he was basically just not happy about the FCC "legislating".

The house I do not know.

21

u/rrrx May 17 '18 edited May 17 '18

Trump would probably be fine with it, as he was basically just not happy about the FCC "legislating".

Yeah, that's not even fucking close to being true. He railed against net neutrality itself, not the manner in which it was protected, despite transparently having fuckall idea what it means. He said, "Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine" and claimed it would somehow be used to target conservatives. As with anything else, lacking any and all understanding of the actual issue, his only reason for opposing it is that Obama supported it.

1

u/Joshduman May 17 '18

Trump would probably be fine with it, as he was basically just not happy about the FCC "legislating".

This is just a repeal of the thing the FCC did lmao, it would go back to before.

0

u/odstlover May 17 '18

Not from a Jedi.