With the Federal Communications Commission scheduled to vote on net neutrality rules Thursday, the commission's two Republicans want to delay the vote by at least 30 days.

Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly want the commission to break with past practice by releasing the entire proposal before the vote. Typically, the FCC releases a summary of the proposal but not the entire document until after it votes on it.

"We respectfully request that FCC leadership immediately release the 332-page Internet regulation plan publicly and allow the American people a reasonable period of not less than 30 days to carefully study it," Pai and O'Rielly wrote today. "Then, after the Commission reviews the specific input it receives from the American public and makes any modifications to the plan as appropriate, we could proceed to a final vote."

They continued:

With the future of the entire Internet at stake, it is imperative that the FCC get this right. And to do that, we must live up to the highest standards of transparency. Transparency is particularly important here because the plan in front of us right now is so drastically different than the proposal the FCC adopted and put out for public comment last May.

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Transparency and good process shouldn’t be a partisan issue. In 2003, for example, Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein called for a delay of the vote on reforming the Commission’s media ownership rules and a public airing of the Commission’s proposal. Their words then echo now: “A public airing would make for better policies. It would make for better buy-in from the American people.”

The Republican majority in 2003 went ahead with that vote despite the objection.

Current Chairman Tom Wheeler leads a three-member Democratic majority, giving him enough votes to pass the plan. Wheeler released a summary of his proposal in early February but has not allowed the release of the entire document. His proposal is the result of a nine-month process that included plenty of public input. The commission received nearly four million public comments.

The vote seems likely to go ahead as scheduled Thursday. Wheeler stated on Twitter that "It's time to act."

FCC received more than 4 million comments on #OpenInternet during past year that helped shape proposal. It’s time to act. — Tom Wheeler (@TomWheelerFCC) February 23, 2015

Pai already asked for a public release of the 332-page plan weeks ago, at which time Wheeler's office said, "The Chairman will continue following the FCC’s longstanding practice of circulating proposals to the commission three weeks before a meeting, getting their input, and making the final Order as agreed upon by the commissioners public after the vote."

Today, Wheeler spokesperson Kim Hart told Ars that “the FCC has received unprecedented levels of public comment on a variety of options for Open Internet rules over the past year through an open and transparent proceeding, producing a record of more than four million comments. In accordance with long-standing FCC process followed in both Democratic and Republican administrations, Chairman Wheeler circulated his proposal to his fellow Commissioners for review three weeks before the scheduled vote. The Chairman has seriously considered all input he has received on this important matter, including feedback from his FCC colleagues.”

Copps wrote on Twitter that Pai and O'Rielly are "way off base" in the comparison to the 2003 media ownership rules. The FCC's record in the current net neutrality proceeding is far more extensive than the "vacuous media ownership decision from 2003 that @FCC voted on and [a] court rejected as totally inadequate," he wrote.

The most controversial part of Wheeler's plan involves reclassifying Internet providers as common carriers to be regulated under Title II of the Communications Act, the same statute that applies to the old wireline telephone network and mobile voice. Wheeler says this gives the FCC stronger legal authority to enforce net neutrality rules that were thrown out in court last year after a lawsuit filed by Verizon.

The rules would prevent Internet service providers, including cellular carriers, from blocking or throttling lawful Internet traffic or prioritizing traffic in exchange for payment. Wheeler intends to forbear from the most strict portions of Title II, but the rules would go beyond the previous net neutrality regime. For example, the FCC wouldn't impose rate regulation across the entire broadband industry, but it could declare that specific rates are not "just and reasonable" if consumers lodge specific complaints.

Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and other Internet service providers have argued against the plan, but it has plenty of supporters. The latest is Twitter, which today said Wheeler's plan will help preserve freedom of expression on the Internet.

"Empowering 'lesser' or historically less powerful voices to express themselves and be heard globally is at the core of Twitter’s DNA," Twitter Manager of Public Policy Will Carty wrote on the company's blog today. "Under net neutrality principles, consumers decide which lawful content, applications, and services they want to create, access or share with others. Currently, the Internet provides an almost frictionless experience for an individual to communicate with the world, and it also provides the lowest barrier to competitive entry for businesses the world has ever seen. It serves as a great equalizer in the access to information and in reaching a global audience. If you have an opinion or a new innovative web-based service, you don’t have to get permission to share it with the world at large."

To protect that freedom of expression, "[w]e need clear, enforceable, legally sustainable rules," Carty wrote. "We strongly support ensuring that such rules include prohibitions against blocking or throttling of sites and services as well as the paid prioritization of some traffic over others. These rules should govern Internet service whether users are at their desk at home or on their smartphone across town."

A "light touch" application of Title II is appropriate, he wrote.

"In moving forward, the FCC is also wisely avoiding unnecessary and overly burdensome regulation," Carty continued. "The Commission is embracing the same kind of 'light touch' regulatory approach that the Congress and the Commission has pursued with respect to wireless services since the 1990s."