Net Neutrality: A Report On Sausage Making

Matt Stoller at MyDD "spent awhile on the phone last night with super duper secret Senate sources and super duper secret lobbyists" and has a fairly long play-by-play account of what transpired at the committee markup of the telco bill. "John Kerry was the major surprise in the hearings. Ted Stevens was deeply angry about the bill, and said at one point that the net neutrality provision was a poison pill that would prevent the larger telecom reform bill from passing. "If we include net neutrality in the bill, we won't have 60 votes to pass the bill", he said, to which John Kerry responded with something along the lines of "If you don't put net neutrality in the bill, you won't have 60 votes to pass the bill either." Ouch. This was vintage kickass Kerry" … "Bill Nelson of Florida was another happy surprise." … "Byron Dorgan, who is one of the most underappreciated and populist Senators in that body, was out there fighting with everything he had." (Matt includes a specific and noteworthy exchange between Dorgan and GOP Chair Ted Stevens.)