Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), a former high school teacher, on Thursday mocked Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for an op-ed on net neutrality that he said is “littered with errors.”
“I only break out the red pen on special occasions,” Takano wrote in a Facebook post. “So when I saw Marco Rubio’s recent op-ed on net neutrality, you know I couldn’t resist. It is intentionally misleading, poorly researched and littered with errors.”
The California lawmaker posted a picture of Rubio’s op-ed online marked up with commentary in red ink. An “F” is written at the top, along with an underlined note to “please do more research.”
Takano took a swipe at Rubio’s presidential aspirations in the Facebook post, advising him not to “draft essays on your return flight from Iowa.”
“See me in my office and I’ll walk you through net neutrality,” he said.
Takano critiqued a Rubio op-ed, which Politico published Tuesday, titled “Government Is Crashing the Internet Party.” In it, the Florida lawmaker makes the case against the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) new rules on Internet service.
“While our leaders can’t be bothered to fix the many institutions in America that are actually broken, they are eager to ‘fix’ the one thing in America that works the best,” Rubio wrote. “With friends like government, the Internet needs no enemies.”
Takano attacked that characterization in his post Thursday.
“Free market? The Internet started as a [government] program,” he wrote. “The Internet is a public good and net neutrality order ensures that the public maintains control of it, instead of handing it over to large corporations.”
At issue is how the FCC classifies the Internet. The agency voted on Feb. 26 to treat the Internet as a public utility rather than an information resource, allowing it to be subjected to more stringent regulations.
Supporters of the FCC’s approach, including Takano, argue it will prevent corporations from unfairly controlling access to content on the Internet. Opponents including Rubio charge that the new rules will stifle innovation and hurt the economy.
Federal regulators revealed Wednesday that the latest FCC guidelines could allow the government to have a say in how much companies charge for Internet access.
Since the agency unveiled the proposed rules, Republicans have been working to stop them. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and 19 other Republicans backed legislation that would ensure the updated regulations would have “no force of effect.”