Bipartisan backers of a trio of proposals to rein in the power of Big Tech and stiffen antitrust enforcement have a simple question for Senate Majority Leader .
The tech lobbying group NetChoice claims that Klobuchar and Grassley’s tech platform bill would lead to the end of ultra-popular programs like Amazon Prime and Google Maps, claims that are spurious at best and laughable at worst.
In a lazy call-back to Obamacare opposition, the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform ― long known for taking corporate money to help out lobbying campaigns ― knocked the bill as a “Trojan horse for big government” that would “increase government abuse of conservatives.”
A Meta-founded front group called American Edge Project enlisted national security experts and generals to claim the bills would empower “foreign adversaries” such as China.
Ads from The App Association, which is largely funded and run by Apple, claimed that the Open Apps Market Act would undermine parental rights by letting children download costly apps behind their parents’ backs.
Advertisement
On top of the record advertising campaign, the Big Four spent $95 million on lobbying in Washington over the past two years. The firms loaded up on revolving-door lobbyists with experience on Capitol Hill, hiring Klobuchar’s former deputy legislative director, a senior GOP committee staffer who helped write Klobuchar and Grassley’s bill, and the former counsel of the antitrust subcommittee, among other former key congressional and executive branch staff.
In addition to the national security front group American Edge Project, the big tech companies launched a progressive front called the Chamber of Progress. The group has helped to push arguments opposed to the antitrust bills from a progressive angle, including alleging that Klobuchar’s bill would make it harder for social platforms to engage in content moderation.
“It would benefit Democrats to carry this mantle forward.”
– David Segal, co-founder, Demand Progress
The Big Four also attempted the tried-and-true lobbying tactic of enlisting small businesses, small trade groups and platform users to be the face of their lobbying push in order to make it look like the legislation threatened the little guy and not four of the biggest companies in the world.
They contributed to local chambers of commerce and minority business groups to push their line against Klobuchar’s bill. And they also tried to stimulate grassroots support against the antitrust bills, to mixed success. Amazon tried to get sellers on its platform to join its push against Klobuchar’s bill, but the sellers rebelled by noting their support for the legislation because they have felt squeezed by increased costs imposed by Amazon and angered by the company’s refusal to do enough to stop the spread of scams on the site. Google similarly blasted users of its office products with messages to write their House and Senate members in opposition.
Advertisement
Though the bills are limited in scope, the industry sees passage as an existential threat because of the precedent it would create, according to a senior Republican aide supportive of the bills.
“If you let one go, coalitions can start forming that you can’t really allow because then you can be vulnerable to serious reforms,” said the senior aide, who requested anonymity to speak without authorization. “So they went balls out against these bills and successfully have basically killed them.”
Graeme Jennings/Associated Press
Last Hope
The chances of any of the bills passing largely come down to their inclusion in what Washington calls the omnibus ― legislation that passes at the end of nearly every year to fund the government and often includes unrelated, typically bipartisan legislation Congress failed to act on earlier in the year.
Some advocates believe Klobuchar’s legislation to increase antitrust funding stands a good chance of inclusion, while her and Blumenthal’s legislation to directly take on Big Tech faces a much stiffer fight, with perhaps the direct intervention of President Joe Biden being the only hope of passage. (One advocate noted Biden put out a statement supporting Manchin’s certainly doomed permitting reform legislation but has yet to say anything about the far more popular antitrust laws.)
Advertisement
Overall, anti-monopolists have been pleasantly surprised by Biden’s commitment to passing and enforcing stricter rules designed to limit the consolidation of corporate power. Biden appointed vaunted antitrust crusaders to key positions in federal agencies, tapping Lina Khan to head the Federal Trade Commission and Jonathan Kanter to lead the Department of Justice’s antitrust enforcement division.
But some of these anti-monopolists warn that the Biden administration risks undermining the perception that it is serious about tackling corporate consolidation if it allows the two moderate antitrust bills to die on the vine.
“It would benefit Democrats to carry this mantle forward,” Segal said. “If they do not, I don’t particularly think Republicans will, but it creates ambiguity about the question of which party is really going to stand up against concentrated corporate power.”
Igor Bobic contributed reporting from Capitol Hill.
