Senate vote to reinstate net neutrality passes 52-47
House must now vote on the measure by January; it would then head to the President's desk
Restoration of the 2015 Open Internet Act continues to be throttled by various interested persons, but the effort won a small victory yesterday. A US Senate vote to overrule the FCC's repeal of net neutrality passed 52-47, sending the measure to the House of Representatives for consideration.
The vote on the Congressional Review Act resolution mostly landed along party lines, according to USA Today, with all 49 Democrats plus Susan Collins (R-Maine), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in favor.
The House has until January of 2019 to take up the measure, but despite wide bipartisan voter support for the measure, representatives on both sides of the aisle have been reluctant to declare support for the challenge. Even if it passed Congress, President Trump could still veto the measure.
Still, with 2018 as an election year and plenty of media companies and communities such as Reddit, Tumblr, Mozilla, PornHub, and more openly supporting net neutrality, it will be difficult for the House to ignore the issue until the clock runs out. Should the measure make it through Congress and the President's desk, the FCC would be prevented from attempting to enact the same rule again. If not, net neutrality's restoration will have to rely on multiple budding legal challenges instead.
The decision to end net neutrality was made at the end of last year per a 3-2 vote from the FCC led by chairman Ajit Pai. New rules reclassifying the internet as a Title I service allow providers to speed up or slow down certain websites or services based on paid partnerships.
Those rules officially take effect on June 11, though it's unclear yet if any ISPs will take immediate action with legal challenges mounting and certain cities promising consequences to business deals if net neutrality is violated.