Ted Cruz vs. Justice Scalia, and Obama vs. Jesse Jackson and the NAACP: The fight in Washington over “net neutrality” has drawn up some strange battle lines.
Obama’s net neutrality plan involves reclassifying the internet under Title II of the Communications Act, and treating it as a utility. But not all net neutrality proponents want this—and, as some have noted, Title II classification is irrelevant to some of the biggest goals of the net neutrality crowd, like eliminating “fast lanes.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson was an early opponent of Obama’s plan. Soon after Obama’s announcement, Jackson began lobbying the FCC to ignore Obama’s advice and instead pursue a net neutrality plan under Section 706 of the Communications Act.
Jackson fears that Title II regulation would kill investment in broadband, and eliminate certain programs used by the poor. “Zero rating,” for example, allows companies to offer users plans that exempt certain services from their data caps. These services are often used by disadvantaged minorities, but Title II regulation would eliminate this kind of unequal treatment.
It could also significantly increase the cost of broadband, particularly in certain states where burdensome state and local fees would apply. A recent study from the Progressive Policy Institute estimated that reclassification would ultimately cost consumers $17 billion in new user fees, in addition to less investment and hampered innovation.
“We got a lot of poor folks who don’t have broadband,” Jackson told the Washington Post. “If you create something where, for the poor, the lane is slower and the cost is more, you can’t survive.”
The NAACP agrees with Jackson, as well as the National Urban League and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, according to a New York Times article highlighting civil rights groups’ widely varying takes on the issue. The Times goes on to list other divided groups:
On the opposite side of the NAACP and Jackson stands the generally conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who backed Title II classification for broadband nearly ten years ago.
The Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Brand X ruled that broadband did not qualify for Title II regulation because it was an “information service” that offered several services rather than internet as a “stand-alone offering.” Scalia called this an “implausible” interpretation and said that the FCC had “exceeded the authority given it by Congress.” In his dissent, Scalia wrote that “…the Commission has attempted to establish a whole new regime of nonregulation, which will make for more or less free-market competition, depending upon whose experts are believed.”
“The number of issues on which President Obama agrees with Justice Antonin Scalia probably could be counted on one hand,” the Times noted last month—“ But one such agreement is a doozy…”
Most of Scalia’s fellow conservatives disagree. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) have all made clear that they plan to fight net neutrality rules. Sen. Ted Cruz’s tweets calling net neutrality “Obamacare for the Internet” set off a firestorm of mockery from net neutrality backers.
