Free Press has begun campaigning against industry-backed Republican...

Free Press has begun campaigning against industry-backed Republican House legislation that would stop the FCC from reclassifying broadband as a Title II telecom service, as net neutrality advocates have requested. House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, last week introduced HR-4752 (CD May 30 p6), which has no co-sponsors and is referred to the Commerce Committee. “Latta’s bill is for the biggest companies that punch his campaign dance ticket, and not for the millions of people who have urged the FCC to protect the open Internet by making these same companies common carriers,” wrote Free Press Senior Director-Strategy Tim Karr in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/1ku9zCo). Karr cited the $60,450 Latta has received in the 2014 election cycle from telecom and media industry players, including many “Net Neutrality haters,” as Karr called them. MapLight research “shows that the members of Congress who have been most active in opposing the idea of establishing net neutrality rules under Title II have received more than twice as much campaign money from the cable industry as the average for all House members,” President Daniel Newman told us in a statement last week when asked about Latta’s bill. Karr dismissed the legislation as “toxic” and urged people to send letters to Congress attacking it (http://bit.ly/1x1GfIY). Latta, in posting a link to industry endorsements for the legislation on his Facebook page (http://on.fb.me/1ueu74P), was widely attacked on these counts across several dozen comments. “Congrats on your new job at Comcast,” one commenter told Latta. “Thanks for nothing.” In response, Latta defended his position. “Those seeking to impose 1930’s telephone regulations on the Internet are desperately seeking a solution in search of a problem,” Latta told us in a statement. “The classification of broadband Internet access as an information service is a long-standing position I have held that has been shared by both the Federal Communications Commission and the Supreme Court. Regulating the Internet as a public utility is bad for the economy, bad for jobs, and most importantly, bad for consumers.”