Net neutrality vote looms in Senate?
A Senate vote on Net neutrality may happen sooner than expected.
Reports are circulating that Sen. Ted Stevens, the Republican champion of a bill to rewrite telecommunications laws, is trying to hold a vote on it this week.
For two reasons, that requires some pretty aggressive arm-twisting. First, the Senate is scheduled to recess from August 7 to September 4, so there's not much time left. Second, to force a "cloture" vote -- needed to overcome any filibuster -- Stevens needs to round up 60 votes.
That could be hard. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has pledged to block any version of the telecom bill that doesn't include Net neutrality regulations, and he's got a good amount of support from fellow Democrats. If Wyden can keep a sizable minority of pro-Net neutrality senators together, he can defeat a cloture vote.
The current version of the telecom bill does not have the aggressive Net neutrality regulations preferred by companies like Google, eBay, and Amazon.com. Here's our chart with a breakdown.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
