The Republicans in the State Senate blocked the net neutrality bill using a parliamentary trick:
Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme and co-chairman of the Energy and Technology Committee, used his authority to split the committee and allow only the four senators to vote. While Democrats have a majority in the committee when House members are included, the committee has two Senate Democrats and two Republicans.
The resulting vote was a tie, meaning the bill failed. Although Formica held the vote open until 4 p.m., it was unlikely the two Republican senators — Formica and Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield — would change their “no” votes.
The procedural trick is seldom used, but was possible because the state Senate is tied 18-18 between Republicans and Democrats. That means Republicans gained an extra chairman on each committee. Formica used that to his advantage and moved to split the vote, which was raised by a senator.
Formica is from the 20th District, which neighbors the 18th, in which I reside. Despite his protestations that he considers net neutrality a federal issue, he was clearly doing the bidding of the telecoms, and a disservice to his constituents. But he was doing a tremendous favor to more endangered Senate Republicans, like hypocritical Heather Somers here in the 18th, who gets to pretend she is for net neutrality, but has been saved from actually voting on the issue, for she surely would have ended up voting in the interests of the corporate masters she so craves to please. (Heather’s first act as a legislator was to propose getting rid of public financing, so she could sell herself to ALEC and the Koch Brothers). Formica is considered fairly certain to be re-elected, so the obvious thinking was that he could afford to take the heat.
Still, this could be a year in which no Republican is safe, and it’s incumbent upon us to go after every one of them. Martha Marx (no relation of Karl’s, so far as I know) of New London is a great candidate. She’s still in the process of qualifying for public financing. Help her out, and strike a small blow in favor of net neutrality. You can donate here.
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