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Comment by boomboomsubban | Hacker News Reader

Obama cosponsored a bill in 2006, as Democrats knew that anything else would leave the decision unsure. A bill was introduced in 09, when the Democrats could have ensured net neutrality, but it never got further than that.

The Democrats have publicly embraced net neutrality, but have done nothing to ensure it. Even in 2016, the Democrats official stated position was to do nothing, leaving it in the hands of the courts. Both parties actual actions have the same results.

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> The Democrats have publicly embraced net neutrality, but have done nothing to ensure it. Even in 2016, the Democrats official stated position was to do nothing

I don't know where the "Democrat's official stated position" comes from, but I have a pretty good idea as to why Democrats weren't talking often about NN in 2016: Wheeler's FCC solved the problem. The ninth circuit upheld the 2015 rules. That's not nothing.

> That's not nothing.

WA passed a law to ensure it. That's not nothing. Waiting for a decision and hoping the status quo sits (I mean it's a great story to ride on the coattails of and tell your constituents you did something), is nothing.

It comes from the 2016 Democrat Party Platform, the pamphlet they publish with their stated positions on a range of topics.

I'll admit I had missed the 2016 ruling on the issue. I may be overly cynical on it, but as I skimmed the briefing it seemed the ISPs still had some court options available. Even if I'm wrong there, they still had the chance to prevent the current situation and ignored it.

There is something to be said about kicking someone when they're down, and finish them off. Democrats had the votes, they should have made it a law. But both parties do like to play the regulation pendulum swing game. This is not the Democrats' first day at the rodeo, they knew full well this had a good chance of swinging the other way with a Republican administration. And so here we are.

1) There's a practical limit to how many laws can be written up and passed through both houses in a year.

2) No one would praise a party for making laws to a problem that is otherwise fixed. Talk about feeding into the republican talking point of democrat bureaucrats.

In short: Don't spend effort fixing something that ain't broken.

This is on the GOP because they made something worse. It's not on the dems for "not making something even better". Make the GOP pay for it if you don't like it. Blaming dems for shit they didn't cause is in part why they lost the election.

>1) There's a practical limit to how many laws can be written up and passed through both houses in a year.

This is crap. The bill was introduced and ignored, though they found time to pass a bill amending the same 1934 Communications act that covers net neutrality in the session to improve caller ID.

The issue wasn't remotely fixed at the time, and they chose to fix it in an easily reversible way. Unless they expected an eternal reelection, the Democrats caused this too. They lost the election because they can't rely on being slightly less terrible than the Republicans.

Regulations aren't fixed. They aren't laws. They are reverted just as easily as they're made in the first place. Regulations are executive branch power only. If you're worried something you care about might change when the political winds change, you'd write up a bill doing exactly what the regulation does, and get it signed into law. They could have done this in a day, and they didn't.

Democrats were either incompetent at predicting the GOP would unwind this when they said they were gonna. Or they liked the idea if it being unwound and being able to blame the GOP for it.

And like I said, not their first day at the rodeo, so the former is impossible. They are definitely not incompetent, they definitely knew the regulations would be unwound. And they definitely did nothing about it as if their either didn't care, or they liked the idea of using it to rile up their base for campaign donations and votes.

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