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Senators Bryon Dorgan (D - N. Dakota) and Olympia Snowe (R - Maine) have introduced a so-called "net neutrality" bill that would slap massive regulations in Internet infrastructure providers, gutting their future profitability and reducing their incentives to build infrastructure in the first place. Here's the proposed legislation... here's a description of it on Dorgan's web site (there's no mention at all on Snowe's site, probably due to insufficient net neutrality)... and here's the inside word from my DC lawyer/lobbyist friend:

Dorgan is hard corps for every regulatory mandate ever conceived. Snowe is a populist lost cause. There's not much of an economy in either of their states but what little promise their citizens have is delivered by the distance-erasing power of the internet. Just try explaining that actual intellectual concept to either of them. (I've tried.)

IRONY ALERT: The interest group most hurt by this issue, if it ever passed, is the telecom union, the Communications Workers of America. CWA reps most non-management employees of AT&T, Verizon and Qwest.

Virtually every tech company supporting NN is non-union (e.g. Microsoft, Ebay, Amazon, Google, and so on).

Why are the Dems for NN? They get the populist kudos from Move-on.org and the no-nothing media and the $$ from the techs -- and they whisper to the CWA, don't worry it won't pass. There is one big desire the CWA wants, which the Dems support.

Ever heard of "card check"? That's what CWA cares about. It will allow their organizers to legally intimidate employees who have not (yet) signed a postcard ballot to authorize a union-election of a non-union company. Verizon Wireless, unlike Cingular, is mostly non-union.

Welcome to the new Washington.

Incidentally (and no coincidentally), the S&P Telecommunications Sector Index was down 1.28%, the worst performing sector in the S&P 500.

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