The major broadband players in the California legislature will be back in Sacramento when the new session begins in December.
The one exception is senator Kevin de Leon (D – Los Angeles). He ran out of time on California term limits and challenged U.S. senator Diane Feinstein. He’ll be unemployed at the end of the month, having lost to Feinstein, 46% to 54%. De Leon introduced one of two network neutrality bills that moved through the legislature this year, senate bill 460. Senator Scott Wiener (D – San Francisco), carried the other one, SB 822, which was a much more thoroughly thought out net neutrality measure.
SB 822 passed the legislature, was signed by governor Jerry Brown and was then put on hold by attorney general Xavier Becerra, in response to a court challenge by telecoms lobbyists and the Trump administration. SB 460 was trimmed back, and would have required state and local agencies to only buy broadband service from providers that abide by net neutrality principles. It was an important bill nevertheless, because it had a better chance of withstanding lawsuits. Despite that – or perhaps because of it – SB 460 died as the legislative session came to an end in August.
Wiener didn’t stand for election this year – his current term ends in 2020. But other key players in the net neutrality struggle did, and they were all reelected by substantial margins, whether or not they were helpful to the cause. Becerra beat his republican opponent by 61% to 39%. Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D – Los Angeles), who tried to kill the net neutrality bills in the committee he chaired, walked home with 71% of the vote in his reelection race. His two wingmen in that attempt – assemblymen Eduardo Garcia (D – Imperial) and Evan Low (D – Santa Clara) – also won landslide victories.
So did assemblyman Rob Bonta (D – Alameda), who whomped his republican opponent 87% to 13%. Bonta deserves much of the credit for saving both Wiener’s and de Leon’s net neutrality bills in the assembly. He brought the warring sides together, after Santiago was slammed by online activists for his defence of big telecom interests.
Senator Ben Hueso (D – San Diego) will be back, too. He also won a lopsided contest against a republican challenger by 62% by 38%. Hueso sat out the net neutrality fight, but as chair of the senate’s primary telecoms committee, he has also been a good friend to AT&T, Comcast, Charter and the rest. Last year, he carried and vigorously advocated for senate bill 649, which would have given telecoms companies the right to attach wireless equipment to city and county-owned street light poles for below market, bargain basement prices.