Kennedy vote fuels speculation of his future

That Republican Sen. John Kennedy reminded Louisianans of his populist tendencies presents another marker that he plans to challenge Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards next year.

Last week, the Senate narrowly voted to overrule the Federal Communications Commission’s rescinding of the so-called “net neutrality” rule. Imposed in 2015, that prohibited broadband providers from blocking content or charging differentially for its delivery, by reclassifying them as common carriers such as done with telephonic services.

The rule made for bad policy on a number of levels. Often shilled for as aiding consumers, it actually is anti-consumer in that it makes more difficult delivery of bandwidth-intense services. It removes complaints about broadband service from Federal Trade Commission jurisdiction, which has perfectly adequate tools to counter anti-competitive practices. It illogically classifies Internet service provision as a critical utility, and then stupidly singles out broadband as a monopoly, even though it must compete for Internet service with telephonic and satellite providers. Finally, contrary to claims that broadband providers would censor content, it makes no sense for them to do so because it diminishes the value of their product and what censoring has occurred comes from other sources.

By law, when an agency like the FCC promulgates a rule, Congress and the president may override it within a certain time period. With a solid House of Representatives majority and GOP Pres. Donald Trump favoring repeal, it won’t happen.

But nearly at parity with Republicans in the Senate presently, Democrats sought to make a symbolic statement against the reversal, hoping to pick up enough Republican defectors for a public relations success. That they may claim such a vote reflects public support of that position when it comes from the states’ chamber while the people’s chamber never will approve of this seems lost upon them.

Still, they succeeded by picking off Kennedy and two other GOP senators. For his part, Kennedy explained his vote with Democrats as action against monopoly, alleging “22 percent of all Louisianans have one choice for an internet service provider who can deliver adequate upload and download speeds.” How he defines “adequate” seems to equate with a 2015 directive by the FCC, about when it issued the net neutrality rule, that defined 25Mbps download/3 Mbps upload speeds as “broadband” – even though then as now few, sparsely-demanded applications need this which direct subscriber lines (not regulated by the FCC) can’t even provide and are precisely the bandwidth-intense applications most harmed by the existing rule.

Despite the fallaciousness of his argument, politically his action makes sense if he has his eye on Edwards’ job. The populism infecting Louisiana’s political culture historically has made it difficult for gubernatorial candidates not to embrace it and win; only Edwards’ predecessor Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal explicitly rejected it in his campaigns, and then even he dabbled in it near the end of his terms on the Common Core issue.

So, this was a free shot for Kennedy: he knew his vote would not overturn the repeal that would defeat what almost everybody in his party wanted, yet afforded him the chance to set up a bogeyman that he could declare he would fight against on behalf of the people. And even should he lose the governorship in 2019 or decide against its pursuit, he can bank this for Senate reelection in 2022.

Kennedy having done this doesn’t make a 2019 run by him a lock. At the very least it shows continued interest in that option.