Colorado Representative Mike Coffman is the first House Republican to break party ranks and support an effort to reverse the FCC’s historically-unpopular attack on net neutrality. The Senate voted 52-47 last May to use the Congressional Review Act to restore the popular FCC rules, first passed in 2015 then repealed last November. The Senate vote required several Republicans, like Maine Senator Susan Collins, to break ranks in order to succeed. The focus then shifted to the House, where net neutrality supporters need 215 votes to force the reversal. With Coffman’s vote, the number of supporters of the initiative now rests at 176. Net neutrality activists hope Coffman’s decision will encourage other Republican lawmakers to support the effort.

“The dam is breaking, as it should,” the ACLU said of Coffman’s move. “Rep. Coffman’s support to undo FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s repeal of net neutrality shows that public pressure is continuing to build on this issue and cannot be ignored this November.” Net neutrality has overwhelming, bipartisan public support, since most people realize that a healthy, open internet free of giant ISP meddling benefits consumers and competitors alike. But ISPs have long succeeded in framing the debate as a partisan one to help stall progress, sow public dissent, and prevent legislative consensus. Coffman issued a statement indicating he’d not only be joining the Congressional vote to restore the FCC’s rules, he’d be tabling his own net neutrality legislation. The problem: analysis of Coffman’s proposed law shows it to be significantly weaker than the FCC’s original proposal, while failing to address numerous areas where ISPs behave anti-competitively—such as usage caps or the kind of interconnection shenanigans that slowed many Netflix streams to a crawl a few years back. Coffman’s bill also isn’t likely to survive the House, thanks to ISP loyal lawmakers like Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who has been pushing her own, loophole-filled and ISP-approved legislation in an effort to prevent tougher state or federal laws from taking root. “While my bill moves through the Congress, I am taking an ‘all of the above’ approach by simultaneously signing the discharge petition on the CRA, and introducing my bill” said Coffman.