The election season is bringing out the inherent value of local internet choice. The Attorney General for North Carolina, Roy Cooper, is running for the Governor’s seat in a state where half the population lives in rural areas, the same areas North Carolina municipalities, like Wilson, want to serve with Gigabit broadband but for a state law commonly known as “H129.” In late May, Attorney General Roy Cooper filed a lawsuit against the FCC for preempting H129, and that lawsuit is making its way through the Sixth Circuit judicial process.
But in early November, candidate Cooper, to his credit, candidly acknowledged that H129 is a “bad law.” Speaking to a local Wilson newspaper, which asked Mr. Cooper why he filed a lawsuit to overturn the FCC’s authorization for North Carolina municipalities to now bring modern broadband to their rural neighbors, Roy Cooper said this:
“The Legislature has passed a lot of bad laws, but it is the job of the attorney general to defend state laws….and I wish the governor and the General Assembly would stop passing so many bad laws that create litigation. We’ve seen that in many instances. This is another situation where the attorney general’s office is duty bound to defend state law.”
CLIC agrees. How unfortunate that bad state laws are forcing FCC intervention to ensure that communities can determine their own broadband and economic future. Wouldn’t it be so much better if localities had local Internet choice?