California, that bastion of sky-high taxes, over-regulation, outrageous housing prices, and progressive liberalism writ large, recently passed stringent internet regulatory legislation in direct violation of the FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, in discussing this turn of events at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, opined that of all efforts to place the internet under tighter government control, “The most egregious comes from California.”
Calling the recent act “a radical, anti-consumer Internet regulation bill that would impose restrictions even more burdensome than those adopted by the FCC in 2015,” he added, “I can understand how they succumbed to the temptation to regulate. After all, I suppose a broadband pipe might look to some like a plastic straw.”
On a less humorous note, he called California a “nanny-state” whose new regulatory policy “will directly impact citizens in other states (and) this is (one of many reasons) why efforts like California’s are illegal. In fact, just last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reaffirmed the well-established law that state regulation of information services is preempted by federal law.”
Undaunted by this Court ruling and the force of federal law, California – similar to its stance on immigration issues — will seriously pursue its efforts to ignore and violate long standing federal statutes governing information services.
Lest we forget, “The Golden State” is currently led (again) by Jerry “Governor Moonbeam” Brown, while graciously lending our U.S. Congress the wit and wisdom of Maxine Waters and the reasoned leadership of Nancy Pelosi. Along the way, it has given us Cal Berkley, Hollywood, Charles Manson, the Menendez Brothers, Colin Kaepernick, and Yosemite Sam.
Is it any wonder, then, why California has decided to protect its citizens from the evils of a free and open internet?
