Broadband a key issue in tomorrow’s debate in Virginia’s 1st congressional district

In the era of Zoom, teleworking, and distance learning brought on by the coronavirus, access to reliable, affordable internet has become an essential issue to Virginians.

Because of the decision by multiple counties to opt to send students back to class at the start of the new school year, students, like never before, are dependent on quality internet.

Qasim Rashid, a Democrat running for Congress in Virginia’s 1st District, which includes Prince William and Stafford counties, recently published an op-ed in Fredericksburg’s Free Lance-Star, noting his “Last Mile Broadband Plan” highlighting the need equal access to high-speed internet.

“We are still in the midst of a global pandemic and now also in the back-to-school season. That means we must do everything we can to keep our communities safe,” Rashid wrote.

“We need to treat broadband like a utility and streamline the current hodge-podge of government programs in place aimed at providing broadband to the last mile. On my first day in office, I would propose legislation to establish a Rural Broadband Expansion Authority with the power to manage every U.S. government grant or subsidy program.”

However, Rashid’s opponent, incumbent Congressman Rob Wittman, suggests that Rashid’s plan is nothing new. Wittman has been working to expand broadband for more than 20 years.

In 2006, while in the Virginia House of Delegates, he authored and passed a bill which edited the then
Governor’s Development Opportunity Fund to allow grants or loans for the purpose of installing,
extending, or increasing the capacity of high-speed broadband access.

“Some in Virginia have suggested making broadband a public utility. However, Mandating a locality transition to a public utility model and having the federal government as the main mechanism in the expansion effort is simply creating another large-scale, less efficient government bureaucratic entity to put up barriers and red-tape … public entities are ill-equipped to efficiently develop, operate, and maintain commercial broadband networks. Simply put, public utilities stifle innovation and create a one-size-fits-all mandate that would overregulate and slow down progress,” said Wittman.

Before he was in Congress, Wittman sat on the Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors, where he led the establishment of a regional approach to bring broadband to the Northern Neck. In March, Wittman introduced the bipartisan Serving Rural America Act, which creates a pilot grant program at the FCC to expand broadband to unserved parts of the country by authorizing $100 million a year for the next five years.

Broadband access is sure to be an issue as the two candidates participate in the first of two scheduled for the campaign. The debate will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 20, at the Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy, at 3630 Lee Hill Drive in Fredericksburg.

The debate is open to the public with limited seating and will also be streamed on Facebook.