How California’s super-strict net neutrality law reached the home stretch

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It’s been a tough fight, with one near-fatal stumble, but California’s assembly just passed what are undoubtedly the strictest protections for net neutrality in the country–if not the world. After what supporters hope will be a perfunctory re-vote in the state Senate, the bill will go to Gov Jerry Brown (D-CA), who has 30 days to sign or veto it.

In June, the bill crashed and momentarily caught fire, under intense lobbying pressure from telecom companies, lead by AT&T. CA State Rep Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), took a red pen to CA State Sen Scott Wiener's (D-San Francisco) senate bill, striking out nearly every provision of substance to leave a milquetoast list of platitudes. He also cut off debate, pushing the gutted bill through the committee–by unanimous, bipartisan vote–on June 28. State Sen Wiener withdrew support for his no-longer-recognizable bill, and all appeared to be lost. None of this was due to partisan battle. CA has an overwhelming majority of Democrats in the state house, as well as a Democratic governor. These were all battles among factions in the same party. That helps explain what happened next, when the full weight of the party (including from once and perhaps future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi) came down on State Rep Santiago. He also faced a heavy (sometimes nasty, ad-hominem) social media chastening from constituents. Industry opposition continued, including deceptive, alarmist robocalls. But after State Rep Santiago’s conversion, the path was largely cleared, culminating in an Assembly vote of 58-17 on August 30. Owing to some amendments, however, the revised bill will have to pass the State senate again before it goes to Governor Jerry Brown.


How California’s super-strict net neutrality law reached the home stretch