SHERROD'S "NAY" PUTS DEWINE ON THE SPOT

The first thing I want to say, the morning after the COPE Act vote, is "thank you" to the handful of Ohio Representatives who took their responsibility to their communities and consumers seriously. Thank you, Dennis Kucinich. Thank you, Marcy Kaptur. Thank you, Tim Ryan.

And thank you, Sherrod Brown.

Sherrod has taken a beating on this blog and others for his April vote to report the Barton/Rush bill out of the Energy and Commerce Committee. He said at the time that he supported national pay-TV franchising, but wanted strong net neutrality language added and intended to support a floor amendment to that effect. My unanswered question then was: If no such language is added, will you still support this bill?

Last night he finally answered the question with his vote: No net neutrality amendment, no support.

This was not an easy vote for Brown to cast -- not, as you might think, because of telecom industry money it may cost him in his Senate race, but because it puts him at odds with one of his strongest union supporters, the Communications Workers. (John Ryan of the Cleveland AFL-CIO, CWA's former district director, has taken a leave to serve as Brown's campaign manager.) CWA has never formally endorsed the COPE Act, but it did send a letter to the Judiciary Committee opposing the Sensenbrenner net neutrality bill, and it strongly supports national or state video franchising to jumpstart the IPTV business of its major all-union employer, AT&T. I doubt that CWA put all that much pressure on Brown -- his vote was never going to matter much in the arithmetic of passage -- but they must be making their opinions known in the campaign. (Incidentally, before jumping to the conclusion that CWA is "the enemy", people who think like me should go read the union's whole telecommunications policy. You may be surprised.)

But when push came to shove, Sherrod backed up his stated commitment to an open Internet with his vote. Good for him.

And good for his Senate campaign, because that "Nay" vote puts his opponent Mike Dewine on the spot.

This is going to be a much, much tighter fight in the Senate, where Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens has his COPE counterpart bill, S. 2686, scheduled for hearings on June 13. Until last night, the Internet uproar about net neutrality posed no threat to Dewine, since Brown had done nothing to position himself to take advantage of it. Now he has. That means Dewine's behavior -- including the side he takes on a very close, high-visibility floor vote in the next few weeks -- could become a significant campaign issue.

The situation is even more interesting in light of Dewine's chairmanship of the Senate's Judiciary subcommittee on "Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights".

Keep watching. This has only gotten started.

P.S. Here's an important comment from Seth Rosen, CWA's District 4 Vice-President, about the union's position. Seth says CWA put no pressure on Brown or anyone else to vote for COPE; that CWA not only hasn't formally endorsed the bill (as I said) but really doesn't support it, because it doesn't require universal buildout of new broadband infrastructure. I consider Seth an unimpeachable source on this subject, so I stand corrected.