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JUNE
**12, 2023**
Dayen on TAP
The California Gang Overturns Democrats' Antitrust Consensus
The likely new Democratic leader on the House Antitrust Subcommittee
shows the fight on corporate power is far from over.
When Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) resigned from Congress effective June 1
to run the Rhode Island Foundation
<[link removed]>,
he left a pretty gaping hole on the House Antitrust Subcommittee. When
Cicilline chaired that committee during the Democratic majority of the
previous four years, he produced a landmark report
<[link removed]>
on the dominance of digital platforms, which included the first
meaningful hearings
<[link removed]>
with Big Tech CEOs in a long time. He even managed to get bipartisan
support for his efforts, although the effort for new antitrust rules for
the tech industry went aground in the Senate.
After the Republican takeover of the subcommittee this year, they put
Freedom Caucus libertarian Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY) in charge, a signal
that there would be no more pressure on big business coming from the
House. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), the former Republican leader on the
subcommittee, had spoken out about concentration, particularly as it
relates to tech, but he was sidelined.
The rollback of the antitrust subcommittee continues with Cicilline's
departure, as it looks likely that Rep. Lou Correa
<[link removed]>
(D-CA), who not only opposed the tech antitrust bills but voted against
<[link removed]> increasing
funding to the key antitrust agencies last year, will take over as the
Democratic ranking member. This will require a vote of Judiciary
Committee Democrats, but so far nobody else has stepped up to challenge
Correa's ascension.
With Massie blocking action on corporate concentration, this won't
matter much now, but if Democrats take back the House, a weak head of
the antitrust subcommittee will have critical implications, and hold
back the one area where the White House has challenged the dominant
orthodoxy in Washington.
It should be said that, while Correa's home state of California has
lots of tech interests in it, his actual district, which encompasses
Anaheim and the heavily Latino city of Santa Ana, isn't exactly a tech
hotbed. It's the home of Disneyland, and big business certainly plays
a role, but Correa's affinity for Big Tech is serving a donor base,
not a base of constituents who he directly represents. Correa's a
former banker and real estate broker, a Chamber of Commerce Democrat
(they endorsed him in 2022), and his position on corporate power follows
from that. The New Democrats have already expressed support
<[link removed]>
for him getting the antitrust subcommittee role.
The idea that other Democrats, including the current number two on the
subcommittee, Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO), have too many other things going
on to take the ranking membership, is a dodge. Neguse is a ranking
member <[link removed]> of a
Natural Resources subcommittee on federal lands, but Correa is also a
ranking member <[link removed]>
on a Homeland Security subcommittee on border security and enforcement.
The real issue is that, since the report on Big Tech, the antitrust
subcommittee has been infiltrated by four California Democrats
<[link removed]>,
led by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who does represent Silicon Valley, and
who has been the major opponent
<[link removed]>
within the Democratic caucus to stronger antitrust legislation. While
Lofgren lost her bid to become Democratic leader on the whole Judiciary
Committee back in 2017, by scratching out a plurality on the antitrust
subcommittee, she effectively controls it, regardless of who is actually
running the show.
Maybe the California Gang will be more amenable to other antitrust
concerns, though Correa's record suggests no. Regardless, at a time
when the White House is making progress on corporate power, this
backsliding shows that there's lots of work to do.
~ DAVID DAYEN
Follow David Dayen on Twitter <[link removed]>
[link removed]
[link removed]
Donald 'Lock Her Up' Trump Indicted for Classified Document Crimes
<[link removed]>
The former president faces multiple felony charges for the kind of thing
he repeatedly called for others to be imprisoned for doing. BY RYAN
COOPER
[link removed]
Biden's Judicial Nominees Struggle With Antitrust
<[link removed]>
A review of answers submitted by the nominees reveals a lack of a
nuanced understanding of the core legal issues in competition policy.
BY LUKE GOLDSTEIN
[link removed]
Why Supreme Court Protests Matter
<[link removed]>
Public outrage at the extreme decisions and corruption may have gotten
John Roberts to uphold Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. BY MILES
MOGULESCU
[link removed]
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