Hi, I'm Jon, a Common Cause intern, and I wanted to tell you about an event I attended on Wednesday.

At a time when Congress has received their lowest approval ratings ever, it is important to be reminded that there are still politicians who care about those they represent (or at least it seems like they do according to their actions).

Senators Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME) and Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND) stood in front of a mountain of stacked up petitions sent in by 1 million concerned citizens that wrote in to support the Snowe-Dorgan bill, S 2917, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act. They explained that this bill is meant to preserve the internet status quo, which is what has allowed the internet to be an open extension of our democracy. Could this no-nonsense treatment of an important issue by these two be a precursor for a Congress that is actually receptive to constituents? We'll find out as the battle over net neutrality moves from the House to the Senate...

Verizon is once again calling for an end to net neutrality (the principle that you should be able to access any content or services you want on the web, without your Internet service provider getting in the way). I could tell you again why I think that's a bad idea. But instead, I'll let Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron and Senator Byron Dorgan do the talking. Both spoke at yesterday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing on net neutrality:

Citron: "As a businessman, I don't get - nor do I expect - a "free ride" on anyone's network. But the truth is these network operators are already getting paid twice. Vonage pays network operators millions of dollars a year for Internet access to deliver our service to subscribers. On top of that, consumers pay billions of dollars every year to these companies for high-speed Internet access. No one gets a free ride."

Sen. Dorgan: "I was eating some Cheerios this morning when I read business section of The Washington Post. It says: Verizon executive calls for end to Google's `free lunch.' ...You know, the fact is, I've had both DSL and broadband cable. Consumers pay for both of those. I paid for the opportunity to have DSL and cable broadband and this is not a free lunch. The reason why I would have paid that is I want access to the content that exists. ...It is not a free lunch for these content providers to come into the Chairman's home or to my home or the home of anybody in this country over the lines of cable companies or telephone companies. Those lines and that access is being paid for by the consumer. And I worry very much if we start moving down the road of deciding that the Internet shall not be free. I think the refrain of this Committee ought to be: keep the Internet free, provide for net neutrality."

Go here to read more about the hearing.