Internet service providers just pulled the big teeth out of California's new net neutrality rules

Internet service providers could not stop the California Legislature from passing tough state net neutrality rules. But they did manage to yank out most of the rules’ teeth. 

First, they persuaded the Assembly to remove two key enforcement provisions from the bill. One would have required the state attorney general to investigate individual complaints about net neutrality violations; the other would have allowed consumers to bring class-action lawsuits and seek punitive damages under the state Consumers Legal Remedies Act. What’s left, evidently, is the ability to bring lawsuits on behalf of specific individuals or businesses harmed by net neutrality violations to compensate them for actual damage suffered. Then the phone and cable TV companies’ allies in the Assembly killed SB 460, a bill to bar state agencies from contracting with any ISP unless it certifies that it complies with SB 822. The second measure was the hammer to the nail of the net neutrality rules, providing a powerful financial incentive for ISPs to comply rather than relying on lawsuits and the courts to make the rules effective. SB 460 failed with a vote of 28-37 as 15 members — 14 of them Democrats — found other things to do with their time. Every single one of the 28 Democrats who voted no or hid in the cloakroom had voted in favor of SB 822 the day before.

This is having-it-both-ways politics, and it’s logically indefensible. If net neutrality is a good thing for internet users, why shouldn’t those protections apply to the internet service purchased by state agencies, such as the state college and university systems? Beyond that, why not use state dollars as leverage to make sure the public receives the protection the Legislature intended?