California net neutrality bill that AT&T hates is coming to New York, too

Enlarge / Protesters take part in a net neutrality rally at a Verizon store December 7, 2017 in New York. (credit: Getty Images | Don Emmert)

A California bill that would impose the nation’s strictest state net neutrality law is being replicated in the New York state legislature.

In California, the bill was approved last month by two Senate committees despite protest from AT&T and cable lobbyists, and it needs to go through one more committee before getting a vote of the full state Senate. Today, a lawmaker in New York said he has teamed up with the California bill’s author to introduce an equivalent bill in the New York legislature.

The “bicoastal effort to restore the rights of an open and free Internet through net neutrality legislation” would cover nearly one-fifth of the American population if both states enact the proposed law, the California and New York state senators said in their announcement.