Impact of Mayors’ Net Neutrality Resolution Would be Unclear

To the mayors of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Tuscon who are pushing the resolution, net neutrality is an issue that affects the economies of cities. The resolution says: “Innovation relies on a free and open Internet that does not allow individual arrangements for priority treatment, also known as paid prioritization.” Impeding startup growth would limit economic development and the creation of jobs, the resolution said (http://bit.ly/1tYVgqs). A second resolution, which its sponsor, Madison, Wisconsin, Mayor Paul Soglin, said could be combined with the other resolution, asks the FCC to reclassify broadband as a telecom service, “establishing firm legal footing for common carriage regulations as the basis for Net Neutrality.” Soglin’s resolution also urges the FCC to pre-empt state anti-municipal broadband laws. The measures require a simple majority to pass at the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting June 20-23.

"A free and open Internet fosters individual success and business growth and is key to our economic competitiveness,” a spokesman for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told us in an email. “Preserving a free and open Internet is necessary to allow our innovative entrepreneurs to grow, compete and succeed in the 21st Century economy,” said San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee in a statement.

Neither Garcetti nor Lee’s spokespeople responded when asked if the resolutions are expected to pass. Soglin also declined to handicap the resolutions in an interview, saying, “I don’t know how much lobbying the telecoms have done. ... I don’t know to what degree the telecoms have already crushed the expectations of Americans to the point where folks don’t want to have the discussion.” Representatives for industry groups would not comment.

Even without industry lobbying, local government organizations including the Conference of Mayors have at times become as frozen as Congress by partisan gridlock because of “internal dissension stemming from the presence of political leaders from opposing parties and ideologies,’ said Paul Posner, director of George Mason University’s Centers on the Public Service, and GAO director-federal budget and intergovernmental relations from 1992 to 2005. “In decades past, they were able to rise above their political differences by reaching toward centrist positions where the interests of states and localities were clearly at stake.” He cited governors’ opposition of unfunded federal mandates in the 1990s. “The rise of polarization has meant that these groups are increasingly sidelined on important issues vitally affecting state and localities,” he said. “Their lack of cohesion on many issues was particularly evident when they went up against well organized and unified opponents like [the] chemical industry or telecom or even health insurers.” The mayors have taken positions on divisive issues including immigration reform, countered Gerard Lederer of the Best Best law firm, who represents municipalities.

Spokespeople for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has constituents in San Francisco, and House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., did not comment on the proposed resolutions. Pelosi’s spokesman referred us to a statement she issued earlier this year backing stronger net neutrality rules than what was reported then to be in the FCC proposed rulemaking. Waxman backs the FCC’s approach developing net neutrality rules under Communications Act Section 706, but thinks the agency should use Title II reclassification as a backstop for its legal authority, a Democratic staffer affirmed. Waxman introduced legislation this year to give the FCC statutory authority to “protect the free and open Internet and give the FCC a clear mandate,” the staffer said.

Garcetti, Lee, Soglin and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray are in non-partisan offices, but have ties to the Democratic party. Garcetti was a state co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign; Lee is a Democrat; Soglin ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1996 as a Democrat; and Murray was in the State Senate as a Democrat. Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild was elected as a Democrat in the city’s partisan election. That the resolutions are being proposed by those with Democratic leanings wouldn’t necessarily dissuade the entire body from taking action, Lederer said. “Unlike the rest of Washington, the U.S. Conference of Mayors doesn’t break down along partisan lines. They look at issues from the perspective of what a mayor needs to run his or her cities and what he or she needs to protect constituents."

Despite the partisan nature of Congress, the mayors may be influential in part because they represent large population centers, said Computer & Communications Industry Association Vice President-Government Relations Cathy Sloan, a backer of open Internet principles. “A lot of communities, and I know Seattle is one of them, are unhappy with the broadband access they get. That’s not a partisan issue. The open access aspect of it is taking it the next step.” The mayors could also be influential in Congress and the FCC, because it’s important they “hear how this impacts people outside the Beltway,” said Public Knowledge Vice President-Government Affairs Chris Lewis. The mayors represent “on the ground issues” like economic development, he said. ,