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Update on the COPE telecom bill

By Dawn Holian Iype
Posted on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 10:08:03 AM EST

Yesterday was the House Commerce Committee vote on the COPE Act - the telecom reform bill packed with special-interest favors to the industry.  The bad news is that it was passed by the committee, and will now move the floor of the House.  We expect it to come to a vote in the full House sometime in May.

The good news is that your activism made a difference.  After receiving thousands of phone calls from citizens like you who are concerned about Internet freedom, several members of Congress changed their position on net neutrality and voted yesterday to protect the Internet from the greedy telecoms who want to privatize it.  

Let's keep the pressure on.  We still have another chance to stop this bad bill when it comes to the floor of the House in the next few weeks.  Educate your friends and family about this issue.  If you have a blog, write about net neutrality.  We need a major grassroots uprising to counter the millions of dollars the telecom giants are spending on lobbying.  

Tell Congress to vote NO on COPE.


Tags: Media and Democracy, telecom, COPE, House Commerce Committee (all tags)


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Update on the COPE telecom bill :: 3 Comments

Public Access TV - Can we Save it?

The Energy and Commerce Committee of the House is forwarding on the Barton bill after having defeated nearly every attempt to amend it. Our amendment to protect Public Access TV failed to pass narrowly. Heather Wilson (NM-Dist#1) was (conveniently) called out of the committee to the House Intelligence Committee and ended up missing the vote on the amendment. It doesn't look like it would have made a difference though.  She did however vote against all the Republicans on the net neutrality issue to keep the Internet from being turned into a toll road for the large telecom companies.

   What's next? There needs to be an all out assault on this bill targeting its primary sponsors Joe Barton (R) Texas and Bobby Rush (D) from Chicago. Both have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the telephone companies sponsoring this bill. I say it's time to create a scandal and start clamoring for their heads as a strategy to defeat this and other forthcoming bills.

by suz on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 12:05:13 PM EST


Tom Allen - Why?

Why was Tom Allen (D-ME) absent for the vote on the Barton Bill?

We had at least of handful of likely votes who did not make it back into the room.  The co-sponsor, Heather Wilson (R-NM) was in an intelligence committee meeting.  There were several others, though, who we are not clear on why they were not present.  They included:

Tom Allen (D-ME)

Anna Eshoo (D-CA)

Hilda Solis (D-CA)

Lois Capps (D-CA)

Henry Waxman (D-CA)

by suz on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 12:14:26 PM EST


re: Tom Allen - Why?

Just want to clarify for folks that Allen, Eshoo et al missed the vote on the amendment about PEG fees (not the overall Barton COPE bill).  That vote happened very quickly after a recess so a lot of members weren't back in the room yet.  According to my list there were 18 members who didn't vote on that amendment.

by Dawn Holian Iype on Thu Apr 27, 2006 at 12:35:01 PM EST
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