Supreme Court Denies Net Neutrality Appeals

In a 4-3 decision, the Supreme Court on Monday rejected a series of appeals from broadband companies over Barack Obama’s net neutrality rule, according to a report from Bloomberg News. The rejection itself is now relatively unimportant, given the Federal Communications Commission’s overhaul of net neutrality this June—but with this ruling, the court had the potential to overrule a 2016 decision that put net neutrality under the purview of the FCC in the first place. Bloomberg notes that Trump had pressed the court to do so. But while Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch said they would overrule the prior decision, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan voted to keep it in place. Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh did not participate in the ruling.