Democratic leadership has selected Representative Lou Correa, an opponent of bills to rein in the largest US technology companies, to serve as their leading voice on the subcommittee handling antitrust matters.
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat Jerry Nadler revealed he had chosen Correa to serve as ranking member on the subcommittee, sparking concerns from some competition advocates about what his voting record may mean for the prospects of antitrust reform.
Tim Wu, a former competition advisor to President Biden, said that Correa’s record is worrying but he “can only hope he comes to appreciate the view of his President and the public more generally that antitrust is a key part of making this economy work for everyone”.
Correa, 65, is replacing Representative David Cicilline, who championed many competition bills and led sprawling investigations into Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook before stepping down at the end of last month.
The four-term representative of California’s 46th congressional district – which contains Anaheim and Santa Ana – was not previously part of the antitrust subcommittee, but he spoke out against several of the six antitrust bills that came before the full Judiciary Committee last year.
Correa joined a choir of Republicans in speaking out against bills like the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) and Open App Markets Act.
Advanced by both the House and Senate judiciary committees, the two bills would have stopped the likes of Amazon and Google from favouring their own products and blocked Apple and Google from limiting the use of third-party payment systems on their app stores.
“My concern is that this legislation will essentially push away investment in this area, it will stifle the economics behind it, the job creation,” Correa said in a 2021 interview with Politico about the package of tech-related bills.
At a hearing last July, Correa added that these bills may also pose national security risks. He cited concerns voiced by a group of former national security officials that some of the bills might hamper companies’ ability to protect against misinformation and cybersecurity risks.
Correa also opposed antitrust bills that were not specific to the technology industry.
He voted against advancing the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, despite saying in 2021 that he intended to back a similar proposal and the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act – which prevents the transferring of antitrust lawsuits brought by state attorneys general.
He will join Representative Thomas Massie, an outspoken enforcement critic, in leading the subcommittee on the administrative state, regulatory reform and antitrust. The subcommittee’s first competition-focused hearing, held on Tuesday, suggests Massie will focus more on clawing back regulations rather than proposing ones endorsed by Cicilline and the previous ranking Republican, Representative Ken Buck, during the previous session.
Republican leadership declined to award Buck the role of chairing the antitrust subcommittee when control of the House changed at the beginning of this year.
Buck has indicated that this legislative session will likely amount to very little in terms of antitrust legislation, calling out the leadership of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan.
While Buck previously said AICOA might have another shot, McCarthy appears to have shot that down and already declared the bill “dead in the house”.
Seth Bloom, former general counsel to the Senate antitrust subcommittee, said it is not entirely up to Correa and Massie whether competition bills advance because they still require a majority vote. However, they are responsible for setting the hearings and the agenda, he said.
“I think the prospects for any antitrust legislation to move through the House Judiciary Committee are very slim,” said Bloom, who lobbies on behalf of Live Nation and Amazon.
Maria Langholz, the communications director for Demand Progress, called Correa’s selection a “profound disappointment” that threatens to leave Big Tech’s anticompetitive conduct unaddressed.
“Even in a polarised political environment, Americans agree, regardless of party, about the critical need to hold Big Tech companies accountable for their anti-competitive behavior,” Langholz said.
But Daniel Francis, a former deputy director of the Federal Trade Commission’s bureau of competition, said Correa has an opportunity to build bipartisan momentum around antitrust reforms that would bring “concrete good” to all areas of the economy, as opposed to just tackling the tech industry.
The New York University Law School professor said there is also better consensus about what fixes are needed for antitrust enforcement as a whole, like clarifying merger and monopolisation laws and repealing harmful antitrust immunities.
“It’s a tragedy that tech platform regulation – which is much more controversial and complicated – has sucked all the oxygen out of the antitrust conversation,” Francis said.
