When will Democrats deliver on their promise to restore net neutrality?

When the Federal Communications Commission voted to institute strong net neutrality rules in 2015, it was because millions of people from across the political spectrum spoke out. If there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that cable and phone companies shouldn’t be able to screw us over more than they already do, or dictate which websites and apps we can use.

When the Trump administration’s notorious FCC chairman Ajit Pai repealed those Obama-era protections in 2017, the move sparked some of the largest online protests in human history. Net neutrality supporters crowdfunded billboards, protested in the streets, and drove millions of phone calls, comments, and emails to regulators and lawmakers. To this day, the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality remains the government action that received the most filed opposition comments by individual people in history.

Democrats seized on this outpouring of grassroots energy. I stood shoulder to shoulder with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi at a rally outside the Capitol in 2018. Midterms in mind, they portrayed Republicans as corrupted by telecom industry money and vowed that Democrats would restore net neutrality if they regained power. Then-minority leader Schumer stood at the podium and declared, “the American people will be able to see for themselves, clear as day, who really cares about this issue, who really has their back in the Congress.” The message was clear: “Vote for Democrats and we’ll restore net neutrality.”