By Jake Johnson | Common Dreams
When Senate Democrats unveiled legislation to fully restore net neutrality last week, every member of the party's caucus signed on to the bill—except one.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), the lone Democratic holdout, is now the target of a grassroots campaign by internet advocacy group Fight for the Future, which is crowdfunding a billboard that accuses her of “siding with corporate donors to kill net neutrality.”
“There's no excuse for not supporting this bill,” Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, said in a statement. “Voters from across the political spectrum are outraged and overwhelmingly want their elected officials to support real net neutrality protections.”
According to Fight for the Future, the Sinema billboard will be displayed at “one of the busiest intersections in Phoenix, Arizona.”
“Senator Sinema needs to decide right now whether the corporate donations she's getting from Comcast and AT&T are really worth the cost of being seen as a telecom shill and one of the most corrupt members of her party,” Greer said. “We're crowdfunding this billboard so she knows that there's nowhere to hide—she can do the right thing or be sure that the entire internet will know she sold them out.”
Fight for the Future said Sinema received more than $130,000 in campaign donations from the telecom industry when she served in the House of Representatives.
Let's 👏 be 👏 very 👏 clear 👏.
Elected officials 👏 can't 👏 hide 👏 from 👏 #NetNeutrality
We're crowdfunding a billboard to call out @SenatorSinema, who is the ONLY Democratic member of the Senate who hasn't supported the #SaveTheNet act.
Chip in! https://t.co/ArM3J1TlQn pic.twitter.com/WvGmE9Id9i
— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) March 11, 2019
When it was introduced last week, the Save the Internet Act was hailed as a “bold and vital” plan to overturn the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) deeply unpopular net neutrality repeal plan, which went into effect last year.
“Whether in the halls of Congress or the halls of the courts, we will not stop fighting until net neutrality is fully restored,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the lead sponsor of the bill in the Senate, said in a statement. “I thank my colleagues in the Senate and House for their partnership in this fight.”
The House version of the Save the Internet Act, led by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), has over 130 co-sponsors. Here are all of the members of Congress who have not co-sponsored the bill.
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