AT&T—AT&T led industry litigation overturning California net-neutrality protections before Supreme Court declined review
AT&T led industry trade group challenges to California's SB-822 net-neutrality law throughout 2018-2022, arguing federal preemption after the FCC's 2017 Title II repeal. The Ninth Circuit upheld the California law in January 2022; AT&T's industry coalition petition for Supreme Court review was denied in May 2022. AT&T's parallel federal lobbying spend exceeded $10M annually during this period opposing restoration of net-neutrality rules.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Protection | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Open Internet & Web Freedom | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Regulatory Capture | +toward | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.477 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.57)
Evidence (1 signal)
Supreme Court declined to review AT&T-led industry challenge to California net neutrality
Ars Technica reported the Supreme Court's May 2, 2022 denial of certiorari in the AT&T-led industry coalition challenge to California's SB-822 net-neutrality law, ending years of industry litigation backed by AT&T trade group ACA Connects.