House Republicans surrender to Big Tech
Conn Carroll
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House Republicans have already broken their promise to confront Big Tech.
Despite saying during the midterm elections that they would hold Big Tech accountable, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) have given Google and Facebook what they wanted: an Antitrust subcommittee without Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) as chairman.
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When Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks (R-IN) wrote his “Cementing GOP as the Working-Class Party” memo to McCarthy in 2021, holding “Big Tech” accountable for “anti-competitive practices” was a policy area Banks identified as one that would build credibility with working-class voters.
House Republicans were set to keep this promise by selecting Buck as chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee. He has a track record fighting Big Tech and just published a book titled Crushed: Big Tech’s War on Free Speech.
In it, Buck outlines three bipartisan legislative efforts he could have pushed through the Antitrust subcommittee: the Open App Markets Act, which bans Big Tech companies from giving preference to their own apps on their platforms; the Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act, which would have broken up Google’s monopoly in the digital advertising market; and the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which would let small media companies (including the Washington Examiner) band together and negotiate fair advertising deals with platforms such as Google and Facebook.
Instead of letting Buck work on this legislative agenda, Jordan, who has taken money from Google, installed Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) as antitrust chairman. Massie has strengths, but cracking down on Big Tech’s anticompetitive behavior isn’t one of them.
The loss of Buck’s antitrust chairman seat is a big win for Google and a loss for working-class voters who trusted House Republicans to hold Big Tech accountable.
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