Breaking Down the House Judiciary Antitrust Bills and Amendments

The majority has scheduled a full-committee mark-up less than two weeks after unveiling the bills and less than 48 hours after disclosing new versions to be offered as substitute amendments. The majority is selling out conservatives in order to ram their whole package through. These are serious changes to a broad area of law that deserve serious consideration. It is clear that House Democrats never intended to allow that to be the case.

In fact, they have even admitted to such strategies. For example, Chairman Cicilline told the New York Times that in the markup, he’ll take up measures with the most agreement first and worse legislation later. At least the quiet parts are sometimes said out loud.

Contrast this with the fact that this was preceded by a more than 16-month investigation, about a dozen hearings, a 450+ page report, and the fact that there have been nine months following the report’s publication. Now that the details to proposed solutions have been drafted without meaningful Republican collaboration, the committee is moving about a month after a partisan report was reported out of committee without a single GOP vote.