Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) will reverse the “disastrous” decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal net neutrality if elected president in the 2020 election, her campaign told the Daily Dot on Tuesday.
The California senator, who has been supportive of efforts to restore net neutrality, will appoint a chair of the FCC who will reverse the agency’s repeal, her campaign said.
“Kamala Harris has been a strong and vocal supporter of net neutrality. As a California Senator she is acutely aware of how a free and open internet is a platform for education, entrepreneurship, and creativity,” a campaign spokesperson told the Daily Dot. “She has has been an original co-sponsor of multiple measures in the Senate that would reverse the Trump FCC’s disastrous decision to roll back net neutrality.”
The spokesperson added:
“As president, she will appoint an FCC Chair who is committed to bringing back net neutrality.”
With the promise, Harris joined a number of 2020 Democratic hopefuls who have said they will appoint pro-net neutrality FCC commissioners to the agency if elected in the next presidential election. Others have said they support legislation to restore the rules, while some have said they envision using federal contracting requirements.
Harris has a history of supporting net neutrality measures as a member of the Senate and has even brought up the issue on the campaign trail as she tries to secure the party’s nomination to take on President Donald Trump next year.
In 2017, she published her comment to the FCC regarding its upcoming vote to repeal the rules, arguing that it was a “grave threat to the Internet’s success, and to California’s future.” She also pushed for the passage of a Congressional Review Act (CRA) effort that would have undone the FCC’s repeal.
That effort passed the Senate last year but died in the then-Republican controlled House.
Harris also submitted questions to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavananaugh during his confirmation hearings asking whether he would recuse himself from hypothetical net neutrality cases because of a dissent he wrote in 2017.
More recently, the California senator has used Avengers: Infinity War as a way to illustrate a point about restoring the rules and urge her Senate colleagues to vote for the Save the Internet Act—a bill where she joined (nearly) all of her Senate colleagues in co-sponsoring. She also pushed for the bill in March in a tweet.
The Save the Internet Act would restore the 2015 Open Internet Order, which established net neutrality rules. The bill passed in the House of Representatives earlier this year but has stalled in the Senate.
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