How Georgia’s Senate runoff will affect net neutrality

The runoff for Georgia’s two Senate seats will have implications for a dizzying number of policy issues for President-elect Joe Biden’s administration—including the future of net neutrality. The two Senate seats in Georgia will determine the balance of power in Congress’ upper chamber. Controlling both chambers of Congress and the presidency would give Democrats wide latitude in shaping policy. “Winning both changes the calculus. It changes the calculus likely on appointees, it changes the calculus for sure on net neutrality,” said Gigi Sohn, a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and former Federal Communications Commission counselor. “Obviously I’m going to be overjoyed if the FCC reverses the reclassification decision and either reinstates the 2015 rules or adopts stronger rules. I just think to hedge against the inevitable lawsuit and to hedge against the next Republican FCC that will inevitably reverse this decision, you need congressional action.” If Ossoff and Warnock were to win, it appears that Democrats would have solid votes on a possible net neutrality bill.