The bills have the beginnings of bipartisan support, but will likely need even more to actually pass.
These days, it’s hard to get Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree on anything. So it’s notable that Democrats on the Antitrust Subcommittee announced a slew of antitrust legislation today aimed at limiting the power of the tech giants — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, specifically — with some bipartisan support from their Republican colleagues. Collectively called “A Stronger Online Economy: Opportunity, Innovation, and Choice,” each of the five bills introduced has multiple co-sponsors, including at least one from either side of the aisle. Broadly, the bills aim at curbing Big Tech’s power by limiting their roles as gatekeepers and their domination of digital markets. The bills also represent the culmination of an 16-month investigation into antitrust issues involving tech companies. If these bills became law, they could significantly contract — or even break up — the key business lines of several major tech companies. They could also change how anti-competitive practices are enforced, whether tech companies can sell or promote their own product on their platforms, and whether they can merge or acquire competing companies at all. Lobbyist groups for Big Tech have already come out swinging, arguing the bills could jeopardize the economic strength of the American tech sector and inadvertently help competitors in China, as well as limit the ability of tech companies to offer free products to consumers. On this issue in particular, congressional leaders will likely need even more support from both sides of the aisle if they are going to pass. That’s because the bills will need a wide enough margin in a narrowly Democratic-controlled Senate to pass — meaning they will likely need unilateral or nearly unilateral support from Democrats in addition to Republican support. On a press call on Friday with Democratic and Republican party aides for legislators leading the bills, the group said they anticipate getting more members of Congress to sign on by the end of the day. Democratic members of the House and Senate have been focusing on how to limit the economic power of major tech companies. And as the Republican co-sponsors on today’s bills show, that desire has some level of support across the aisle. But other leading Republican senators have been more narrowly focused on a whole other set of issues around perceived anti-conservative bias and limiting tech companies’ power to ban conservative figures. Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who is an original co-sponsor on all five bills, has said he views antitrust legislation as addressing other Republicans’ concerns, because if there are alternatives to Facebook, Google, and Twitter, then there will be more diverse social media companies representing conservative viewpoints.
