A left-right coalition of Big Tech skeptics is pushing the Senate Judiciary Committee to revive its work on expanding antitrust requirements for platforms like Amazon.
Groups including the Digital Progress Institute, the Article III Project and Demand Progress urged the panel’s leaders on Thursday to reintroduce the American Choice and Innovation Act as a way to tackle cost-of-living issues.
You can read the letter to Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who have long supported AICOA, exclusively here.
“We respectfully urge the Committee to reintroduce AICOA and move it to markup without delay,” the 17 groups from across the political spectrum wrote. “Pro-competitive reforms that lower costs for consumers and protect small businesses should not be a partisan issue.”
Back in 2021, before artificial intelligence and efforts to protect teens on social media, lawmakers focused their bipartisan anger on Big Tech’s economic power.
Of the bills that emerged, AICOA, which was led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), took up the most attention. The bill aimed at allegations of self-preferencing, like Amazon giving plum positioning to its own brands or Apple installing its apps as defaults while rival services fought for downloads.
An outside alliance of progressives and populist conservatives, many of whom signed the new letter, helped AICOA along.
One last job. Despite the support, the bill fell short in 2022. Industry lobbying and iffy support from Grassley and Klobuchar’s colleagues doomed the proposal.
Since that time, the success of some lawsuits against major tech players suggested old laws still have teeth when it comes to modern markets. Klobuchar is likely on her way out of Congress, too, due to her gubernatorial run.
But the letter says tech is still “one of the most significant remaining gaps” when it comes to how law enforcement and the Hill are tackling competition and affordability.
Among the most prominent groups on the letter is the Article III Project and the Internet Accountability Project, both led by Mike Davis. The former Grassley staffer has both argued for stepped-up antitrust enforcement against tech while also working to help mergers get approved by the Justice Department.
Davis allegedly threatened the job of then-Justice Department antitrust division chief Gail Slater as part of his work on a Hewlett Packard Enterprise deal last year. The merger went through, and Slater was fired in February.
The Trump-allied American Principles Project also signed, as did left groups like Public Citizen and the Open Markets Institute.
The signers also urge moving AICOA with bills on antitrust issues for app stores and online ads.
