On Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) called on the state legislature to pass net neutrality protections for the state in the 2020 session. Net neutrality rules are essential to keeping the internet free and open, as they forbid internet service providers (ISPs), such as AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, and Verizon, from favoring certain websites over other, and force them to treat all internet content equally.
Nearly two years ago, Gov. Cuomo signed an executive order requiring state agencies to only do business with ISPs that abide by net neutrality rules. This order came a month after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) controversially repealed these rules, despite overwhelming public support for them. The governor wants to go a couple steps further by requiring transparency in ISPs' internet traffic management, as well as banning "zero-rating," which allows ISPs to pick and choose which apps and services are or are not included in a costumer's monthly data allotment.
Gov. Cuomo released a statement proposing the piece of legislation, stating that it would make sure "big corporations can't control what information we access or stymie smaller corporations." While it's commendable that he is proposing this as a priority for the next legislative session, he has a history of taking campaign contributions from the very industry he claims he wants to regulate.
NY Database has a catalog of donations to Cuomo's campaign between January 2010 and September 2018. In this time period, he accepted $137,900 from AT&T, $156,200 from Comcast, $126,000 from Sprint, and $50,000 from Verizon. The contributors includes PACs associated with these ISPs, as well as Comcast senior executive Vice President and lobbying chief David L. Cohen, who donated $15,000 to Cuomo, and former Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, who donated $5,000. With these facts in mind, can New Yorkers really trust their governor to fight for the restoration of net neutrality protections as he promises? After all, lobbyists for these companies have aggressively pushed to water down net neutrality legislation at the federal and state level in the past, so it stands to reason that they will do the same for this proposed bill. They will likely lobby for loopholes to benefit them, which the governor, given their donations to him, may either support or only meekly push back against.
So, will Gov. Cuomo stand up to his donors and fight for the strong net neutrality protections overwhelmingly supported by the will of people? Or will he succumb to the pressure of his big-money donors in the telecommunications industry? Time will tell, but hopefully, he will serve the people who voted him into office three times. New Yorkers should take this information, present it against their governor, and ask him, "who will you serve? The voters or the donors?"
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