Net Neutrality resolution skirmish in Louisiana Public Service Commission meeting shows partisan divide

For those who still hold that Baton Rouge (LA) has missed the hyperpartisan political culture that defines Washington these days, a brief vignette from a recent Louisiana Public Service Commission meeting might prove enlightening. PSC Commissioner Foster Campbell, a Bossier Parish populist who carried the Democratic banner in the last Senate race, asked the regulatory panel to go on record supporting net neutrality, just like 22 other states have done. PSC Commissioner Mike Francis, who once chaired the Republican Party, asked the identity of the 22. “Would it make any difference?” Campbell said, suggesting his GOP colleagues’ votes were predetermined. “It’s liberal versus conservative and I’m conservative,” Francis replied. He, therefore, supports President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission’s December revocation of President Barack Obama’s 2015 order that forbid internet service providers from offering faster speeds and better access to companies that can afford to pay more.

Their bickering crystallizes yet another national partisan fight that soon will come to Louisiana. Gov John Bel Edwards (D-LA) is mulling whether to issue an order requiring that telecommunications companies doing business with the state adhere to the old “net neutrality” policy, just like Democratic governors of Montana and New York have done.