House passes net neutrality bill with no hope of becoming law

The Democratic House spent its last session before a two-and-a-half-week spring recess debating and voting 232-190 to pass a major net neutrality bill that has no chance of becoming law.

Only one Republican joined with Democrats on the measure: Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla.

The “Save the Internet Act of 2019” (H.R. 1644) seeks to “restore the open internet order of the Federal Communications Commission.” That’s a Washington way of saying it would reinstate the Obama-era net neutrality regulations the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal in December 2017.

The bill has pretty much no chance whatsoever of becoming law.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday that the bill is “dead on arrival” in this Senate because the chamber will not take it up. Last year, Democrats were able to get around Senate leadership to force a vote on the matter, and it succeeded by a vote of 52-47 after three Republicans joined with the minority: Susan Collins, Maine, Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, and John Kennedy, La.

Regardless of what happens in the Senate, however, the Trump administration sent out a clear veto threat Monday.

The bill was introduced last month by Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., and of its almost 200 cosponsors, there was not a single Republican to be found.

As to the supposed necessity of the bill, widespread hyperbolic doomsday predictions about the death of the internet that preceded the 2017 vote never came true. In reality, internet download speeds and mobile data speeds actually increased in the year following the repeal.

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