The Pete Session bill (R-Texas) would create a Federal law prohibiting states and munipalities from offering broadband as a public service. Sessions has this to say:
"Rather than investing in vital public works projects, some local and state governments are investing their limited funds into telecommunications projects and putting taxpayer dollars at risk," the five-term congressman from Dallas said in a statement. "By choosing to invest their limited resources in telecommunications infrastructures, municipal governments often duplicate services already provided by a private entity."
It is worth noting that Sessions, before he became a Congressman, worked for the phone company. What a surprise. Sessions would have apparently opposed public water projects one hundred years ago, since there were private water companies before cities and towns began to take on that service. Sessions apparently would have also opposed paved roads, since private companies also built roads before governments took that over.
It is hard to understand just how foolish Sessions can be, but it seems obvious the man has not studied much history, and has thought very little about how communities came to provide what he calls "vital public works projects." Most of those were taken on because the private sector could not or would not provide those services to every household and business. Does that sound familiar?
There is also a constitutional question here. Where the does the Federal government find it has jurisdiction over local, intra-state communities, or the states themselves, in this matter?