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Sadly it appears as though the only legislation which unifies both sides of the political aisle (be it in favor of or against a given piece of legislation) is that which is completely asinine and backward. The seemingly basic bills are inevitably deadlocked in recent years.

Then again, that's not entirely unexpected.




I think this is mostly due to the low impact on votes that these kind so of bills have. These bills can usually go undetected.

<spam>I think this again shows that groups like the EFF are invaluable. Donate today! </spam>


Yeah, sadly I don't think this is a priority for most of the public, and many who do have an opinion support the "shut down the pirates, whatever it takes" approach.

Take Wyden in particular: he just won reelection two weeks ago, 57-40%. If this sequence of events had taken place before the election, would he have won by a larger margin? I think it's unlikely. Probably it would've turned out the same, but if anything it's possible he would've done slightly worse, since his opponent could attempt to portray him as a pro-piracy "extremist" who blocked a bipartisan bill that had passed the relevant committee unanimously.


I live in Oregon. Wyden had that election won long before election day. The focus was in the governor's race here and even Wyden's opponent, a Lewis and Clark University law professor named Hoffman, admitted the state Republican party put all its money into the gubernatorial race. The outcome of this bill wouldn't have made a difference one way or the other.




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