On the 16th of December I said "SOPA is Dead. For Now." and now it would appear that it is dead again. Possibly for good.
House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said early Saturday morning that Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised him the House will not vote on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) unless there is consensus on the bill.
"While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act, I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House," Issa said in a statement. "Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any anti-piracy legislation coming before the House for a vote."
Meanwhile a number of senators, including GOP senators, are asking Harry Reid to cancel an upcoming vote on the senate counterpart to SOPA known as Protect IP (PIPA), and the Obama Administration has also come out against both bills.
Controversial bills like SOPA and PIPA rely on quickly moving through the legislature before people find out what's really in it. Postponing debate on the bill until after the holiday break meant everyone would have time to look at it and pressure to shelve the legislation would have time to build momentum.
And that pressure didn't come only from private citizens. It came from major billion-dollar businesses too. In hindsight we probably wouldn't be breathing a sigh of relief today without the immense pressure from internet-based business.
Furthermore, we're officially in election season now. The odds of something as controversial as SOPA passing between now and November are almost nil. And if the bill isn't resurrected before the GOP primary is officially over, I doubt it will come up for debate again until this time four years from now.
That is unless Mitt Romney were to win in November. Then it could be signed into law by February. That's not a scenario I'm predicting, however it is food for thought.