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For Immediate Release
May, 21 2020, 12:00am EDT
Thursday May, 21 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Timothy Karr, 201-533-8838
The Trump FCC's Net Neutrality Repeal Is Still Wrong
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON - On Wednesday, Free Press condemned the Federal Communications Commission's abandonment of its authority to safeguard internet users and promote universal and affordable access to an open internet.
In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit commanded the FCC to examine the impacts of removing Title II as a source of authority for broadband's inclusion in the Lifeline subsidy program. The court also ordered the agency to analyze and account for its decision's impacts on public safety and broadband-infrastructure policy. Wednesday evening was the deadline for public comments to the agency on this process.
The court found that the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai had arbitrarily and capriciously failed to address the serious cascading implications of scrapping its Title II classification of broadband internet access service, with the Commission committing "straightforward legal error" by refusing to consider these questions properly in its headlong rush to get rid of strong Net Neutrality rules and the legal framework on which they stood.
Free Press' reply comments filed Wednesday evening note that the agency's "misguided repeal of Net Neutrality and its authority over broadband internet access service harms the Lifeline program, pole-attachment regulation, and public safety," concluding "the best remedy for such harms would be for the Commission to once again correctly classify broadband as a Title II service protected by strong open-internet rules."
Free Press Policy Manager Dana Floberg made the following statement:
"It's still just as clear today as ever that the FCC should reclassify broadband as a Title II service. The only dissenting views in this proceeding came from broadband-industry-aligned lawyers, lobbyists and front groups whose arguments rest on unproven claims that the Trump FCC's repeal has somehow spurred a golden age of broadband investment and fiber deployment. But these investment claims are built on falsehoods and disinformation with zero evidence in actual investment figures.
"Chairman Pai's shameless credit-taking for broadband-market growth is driven by his own arrogance rather than actual numbers. Deployment in the years following his 2017 decision to reclassify broadband access continued on the trajectory established during the Obama era. Any growth in fiber-to-the-home buildout is not due to Pai's actions but to the completion of projects that ISPs publicly announced well before Pai settled into the FCC chair.
"Restoring Title II authority is the only way to give internet users the legal protections they need to access an open and affordable internet. Title II formed the solid legal foundation for popular Net Neutrality protections. But it also gave the agency the authority it needed to deal with the issues the court sent back to the FCC: ensuring that vital broadband-affordability programs like Lifeline could promote internet adoption to communities that have been stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide.
"The Trump FCC's unjustified repeal of the Net Neutrality rules in 2017 tossed out the agency's best source of authority to promote broadband competition, protect public safety and more. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the need to treat broadband as an essential service more obvious than ever before. But the FCC response to the pandemic has been largely limited to the chairman merely exhorting broadband providers to sign a voluntary pledge to keep people connected, despite evidence that many of these ISPs are already breaking their promises to internet users.
"Back in 2017, millions of people of all political stripes demanded that the FCC protect a free and open internet. Instead, Chairman Pai imposed his unmoored, ideological vision for stewarding and safeguarding people's internet access. The court's remand shows that Pai's interpretation of his agency's legal authority rests on very unstable ground. There's little sense in the FCC pretending it can address these crucial broadband issues without restoring its authority to do so first."
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
(202) 265-1490LATEST NEWS
'A Big Win': Federal Judge Blocks Trump Efforts to Defund Planned Parenthood
A provision in the Republican budget law signed earlier this month "kneecaps the entire organization" and harms patients' ability to access care, said a judge.
Jul 28, 2025
Patients who use Medicaid to access health services at Planned Parenthood clinics will not be forced to find care elsewhere following a ruling Monday by a federal judge in Massachusetts.
Judge Indira Talwani in the state's federal District Court extended a temporary restraining order she had placed on the Trump administration earlier this month, barring it from imposing a one-year ban on states sending Medicaid payments to nonprofits that provide abortion care.
The ban, a provision in the domestic policy and budget bill President Donald Trump signed into law this month, applied only to groups that received more than $800,000 in Medicaid funding in 2023—suggesting Planned Parenthood, a longtime foe of right-wing policymakers, is the "target of the law," said Talwani.
Federal law already prohibits public funds from being used to pay for abortion care, and Talwani found that the Republican Party and the Trump administration aimed to force clinics to "disaffiliate with Planned Parenthood Federation and stop providing abortion to continue participating in Medicaid programs."
"Imposing that choice kneecaps the entire organization," said Talwani.
Ripping Medicaid funds away from clinics would also harm patients, said the judge. About 11% of female Medicaid beneficiaries used services at Planned Parenthood clinics in 2021, according to the KFF, and the provision in the budget law made patients "likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable."
"In particular, restricting members' ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs," Talwani said.
Talwani had granted relief for certain Planned Parenthood member organizations last week with her temporary restraining order, but the injunction applies to all clinics. The Trump administration filed an appeal of the restraining order last week; Talwani's injunction will remain in effect barring action from the appeals court.
Dominique Lee, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said she was "encouraged" by Monday's ruling.
"At a time when reproductive healthcare access is under constant attack, this decision is a powerful reminder that patients, not politics, should guide healthcare," said Lee. "In Massachusetts and beyond, we will keep fighting to ensure everyone can turn to the provider they trust, no matter their insurance or ZIP code."
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called the ruling "a big win."
"As this case continues, patients across the country can still go to their trusted Planned Parenthood provider for care using Medicaid," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "We will keep fighting this cruel law so that everyone can get birth control, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, and other critical healthcare, no matter their insurance."
Trump-Supporting Contractor Burned After Immigration Raids Scare Away Half His Workers
"We're supportive of what the president is trying to do. But the reality of it is our industry has to have the Hispanic immigrant-based workers in it," said the CEO of an Alabama construction firm.
Jul 28, 2025
After months of national protests over U.S. President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, even some of his supporters—including an Alabama man who runs day-to-day operations at construction sites—have come to the conclusion that workplace raids aimed at rounding up undocumented immigrants are the wrong way to go.
In an interview with Reuters published Monday, construction site superintendent Robby Robertson expressed frustration at the way the Trump administration's hard-line immigration policies have impacted his business.
He said that trouble at his site began in late May shortly after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on a construction site in Tallahassee, Florida, which he said scared off nearly his entire workforce for several days afterward. Even though nearly two months have passed since then, he said a little more than half of his workforce has come back.
This is negatively impacting his current project, which he said was projected to be finished already but which has been slow to complete now that his initial 22-person roofing team has dwindled down to just a dozen workers. As if that weren't enough, Reuters wrote that Robertson's company "is facing potentially $84,000 in extra costs for the delays under a 'liquidated damages' clause of $4,000 for every day the project runs beyond" its deadline.
"I'm a Trump supporter," Robertson told Reuters. "But I just don't think the raids are the answer."
Robertson added that the raids aren't just intimidating undocumented immigrant workers but also Latino workers who are in the country legally but who don't want to get swept up in raids "because of their skin color."
"They are scared they look the part," Robertson explained.
Tim Harrison, the CEO of the construction firm that is building the project being overseen by Robertson, told Reuters that finding native-born American workers to do the kind of work he needs is extremely difficult, especially since Alabama already has a low unemployment rate that makes trying to attract workers to a physically demanding industry difficult.
"The contractor world is full of Republicans," explained Harrison in an interview with Reuters. "I'm not anti-ICE. We're supportive of what the president is trying to do. But the reality of it is our industry has to have the Hispanic immigrant-based workers in it."
A report issued earlier this month by the progressive Economic Policy Institute (EPI) projected that the construction industry could take a severe hit from Trump's mass deportation plan given how many undocumented immigrants work in that industry.
"Employment in the construction sector will drop sharply: U.S.-born construction employment will fall by 861,000, and immigrant employment will fall by 1.4 million," wrote EPI senior economist Ben Zipperer, who added that the Trump administration's plans risked "squandering the full employment... inherited from the Biden administration and also causing immense pain to the millions of U.S.-born and immigrant workers who may lose their jobs."
Progressive Group Takes Aim at Four Texas Republicans Who Voted to Cut Medicaid in New Ads
"We're holding these members of Congress accountable for voting for the Republican tax law that strips health care away from millions of Texas families," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.
Jul 28, 2025
The progressive advocacy group Unrig Our Economy launched a new $2 million advertising campaign Monday against four Texas Republicans who voted for the massive Medicaid cuts in this month's GOP megabill.
At the behest of President Donald Trump, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is mounting an unusual mid-decade effort to redraw Texas' congressional map to keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives come 2026.
The plan is expected to net the GOP five seats. But the flipside is that some seats that were once GOP locks may become more vulnerable to Democratic challengers.
Those include the ones held by Republican Reps. Lance Gooden (5), Monica De La Cruz (15), Beth Van Duyne (24), and Dan Crenshaw (2)—all of whom voted for the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act."
Put together, these four congresspeople alone represent around 450,000 Medicaid recipients, according to data from KFF.
The law remains dismally unpopular, with the majority of Americans believing that it benefits the rich, while providing little to ordinary Americans. According to a Navigator survey conducted last week, 7 in 10 Americans said they were concerned about its cuts to Medicaid.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that 10 million Americans will lose health insurance as a result of the law's Medicaid cuts.
Around 200,000 of them are in Texas according to KFF. In total, up to 1.7 million people in the state may lose their insurance as a result of other subsidies that were also cut.
Those are the people Unrig Our Economy hopes to reach with its new ad blitz.
One ad hits Crenshaw—whose district has nearly 92,000 Medicaid recipients—for making false promises to protect the program.
(Video: Unrig Our Economy)
It shows a video of the congressman from May 14 assuring Texans: "You have nothing to worry about. Your Medicaid is not going anywhere," less than two months before voting for "the largest Medicaid and healthcare cuts in history."
Another singles out De La Cruz—who represents over 181,000 Medicaid recipients—for her vote for the bill after warning that the cuts "would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing homes are already struggling to keep their doors open."
Among hundreds at risk across the country, 15 rural hospitals in Texas are in danger of closing because of the cuts, according to a study by the health services research arm of the University of North Carolina.
The ads targeting Gooden and Van Duyne, meanwhile, draw more attention to the effects of their cuts on Texan families: "Medicaid covers a third of all children, half of all pregnant women, the elderly in long-term care, and the disabled."
(Video: Unrig Our Economy)
Gooden's district contains more than 120,000 Medicaid recipients—over half of whom are children. In Van Duyne's district, children make up close to two-thirds of the more than 57,000 enrollees.
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the bill cuts more than $930 billion in total from Medicaid over the next ten years. Over that same ten-year period, the wealthiest 1% of Americans will receive over $1 trillion worth of tax breaks.
All the ads hammer home the fact that these devastating cuts were passed "to fund tax breaks for billionaires."
Unrig Our Economy's ad blitz is the first salvo of a $20-million effort by the House Majority PAC—the largest national PAC supporting Democrats—to beat back the effects of the Republican gerrymandering effort.
"We're holding these members of Congress accountable for voting for the Republican tax law that strips healthcare away from millions of Texas families," said Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal.
Unrig Our Economy has launched similar ads against vulnerable Republicans across the country, such as first-term Rep. Rob Bresnahan, whose northeast Pennsylvania constituency is made up of more than one-fourth Medicaid recipients.
"These ads," Tal said, "are just the latest in our nationwide campaign to show the horrible impacts of this law, which benefits the superwealthy at working families' expense."
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