Two major lobbying groups are hitting back hard at new net neutrality rules meant to protect an open internet, both headed by former commissioners for the regulator that passed the rules.

The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), a wireless industry lobbying group run by former Federal Communications Commission commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the FCC seeking to overturn the regulator’s landmark net neutrality rules on the grounds that “the FCC usurped the role of Congress” in creating them.

The suit joins a similar filing from the National Cable & Telecommunications Assocation (NCTA), run by Michael Powell, formerly the chairman of the FCC under GeorgeW Bush. When the rules were passed, Powell observed that consumers will immediately “bear the burden of new taxes and increased costs” as a result of member organizations passing on any costs associated with net neutrality to consumers. The NCTA is bringing in heavy hitters, as well: its suit will be handled by former US solicitor general Theodore Olson and former assistant to the US solitictor general Miguel Estrada.

A smaller group, the American Cable Association, also filed suit Tuesday. The new lawsuits join yesterday’s filing by another lobbyist, USTelecom.

The board of CTIA is composed of executives from companies including Verizon, Microsoft, Samsung, Motorola, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and US Cellular. The board of the NCTA, which is run by Michael Powell, himself a former chair of the FCC, includes execs from Comcast, Cox, Charter, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and Disney.

Baker, in particular, has ties to the lobbying community and the government that run deep, especially around direct regulatory action: in 2011, she left the FCC to work as senior vice-president of government affairs for Comcast, barely four months after the regulator had approved that company’s purchase of a majority stake in entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal. Baker, an Obama appointee who served less than two years on the commission, was a strong voice in favor of the merger’s approval.

Writing on the CTIA blog, Baker wrote that she was “confident that the courts will reject the FCC’s overreach for the third time, particularly with respect to mobile broadband services.” The “third time” to which Baker referred counts previous rulings against the FCC, notably this same court’s ruling last year that cable networks couldn’t be classified “common carriers”, a crucial aspect of the law.

The language of the CTIA suit seems to agree that “carefully-tailored rules to protect internet openness will allow investment and innovation to continue to flourish”. Its further contention, however, is that the rules privately determined to be most beneficial to the consumer by its members are the only rules necessary, pointing out that the trade association’s standards are “[i]nformed by the views of nearly 4 million commenters, our staff-led roundtables, numerous ex parte presentations, [and] meetings with individual Commissioners and staff”.

The FCC’s net neutrality ruling, while popular with consumers and video producers like Netflix, is controversial and, some analysts say, on dubious legal grounds until thoroughly tested by lawsuits just like this one.

“Net neutrality can’t stand legally,” said Rich Greenfield of BTIG. “There are going to be heavily contested battles, and even if [it does, the rules] don’t get into the question of so-called ‘managed’ services.”

Either way, Greenfield says, with respect to the way carriers privilege – or don’t – certain kinds of content, “there are concerns that companies like Netflix and Dish and many others still have”, even if net neutrality passes muster with the courts.

