The Petition of Reversing the Net Neutrality Repeal Misses Democratic Votes

Net neutrality advocates are waiting for the support from the House of Representatives by the deadline of December 10 to reverse the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules.

1. To start with, the Congress has the opportunity to reverse FCC Chairman’s net neutrality repeal by the end of the session. Afterwards, it gets way harder to restore protections against blocking, controlling, and implementing new fees.

2. Without net neutrality rules, monopolistic Internet providers like Verizon and AT&T will have the full power over the online communications of their subscribers. In order to increase awareness of the upcoming deadline, there will be a social media push to direct people to the "deadline for net neutrality” page, where they can sign an open letter to the Congress.

3. In the House, 218 members (a majority) would have to sign a discharge petition to force the US Senate vote, but only 177 have signed it so far with 176 of them being Democrats.

4. Even though the Democrats mean to protect net neutrality when they have the majority in Congress next year, there are still eighteen Democrats left who haven’t signed petition yet. Plus, the greater number of of Republicans in the Senate makes it less likely that the Democrats will get their net neutrality bill through both chambers of Congress.