Thread by @matthewstoller

Judiciary markup of big tech antitrust bills reconvenes, members are officially tired already.

Jim Jordan says the conflict of interest break-up bill HR 3825 has too much vagueness and will allow an "army of woke civil servants" to carve up big tech.

And now @RepJayapal is giving a good history of how break-ups help foster innovation.

And now the @RepZoeLofgren/@Jim_Jordan/ Google coalition is trying to block this bill that would break up these firms. Lofgren is quite dedicated to protecting concentrated capital.

Zoe Lofgren says the bill would "throw a grenade" into our tech sector and jeopardize the ability of tech workers to pay their mortgages. Lofgren would be credible if she didn't make silly claims like that.

The Lofgren/Jordan/Google coalition...

https://twitter.com/leah_nylen/status/1408092758879973382

Now Darrell Issa is attacking the break-up of AT&T in 1984 as a way of saying we shouldn't break up big tech today. Fun!

"To truly rein in these platforms we must break them up." - @MondaireJones

"Unless we break these companies up they will continue to be above the law." - @MondaireJones

Darrell Issa is putting forward an amendment to codify the consumer welfare standard in the structural separation bill. Cicilline opposes as too narrow a standard.

And @davidcicilline's arguments against the consumer welfare standard are much more coherent this time than it was last night at 4am. The consumer welfare standard is totally incoherent.

Here's Mike Lee's definition of "consumer" in his version of the consumer welfare standard.

DEFINITION OF CONSUMER.—In this section, the term ‘consumer’ includes buyers and sellers.’

Completely incoherent.

And now @RepMattGaetz says that Teddy Roosevelt would be "very proud" of the bill authored by @RepJayapal to break up big tech.

Ideological scrambling!

Ok @mattgaetz says #FreeBritney in this markup on big tech.

I'm on board.

And now Cicilline makes the obvious point that the consumer welfare standard is the standard that led to the problems we're dealing with today. Yes! I'm impressed with @RepSpartz but she's wrong about the consumer welfare standard.

"It shouldn't be called the consumer welfare standard it should be called the corporate welfare standard." - @MondaireJones

And now Nadler is pointing out that Bork's main project was to implement the consumer welfare standard, and that standard led to the monopoly crisis we have today.

I've been listening to this markup and Republican @jdanbishop just made the argument against having regulators designate big tech firms. He thinks Congress should just do it in statute. If you want to break up big tech just put the instructions into the bill.

So @jdanbishop on the R side says to just skip the administrative bureaucratic designation and move straight to break-up. Hard to see where that's wrong.

This is an incredible moment. @jdanbishop and @RepJayapal are working on an amendment to put structural separation bright line instructions into the underlying bill and remove policymaking authority from regulators.

They couldn't quite get there, but they may work together on something on a floor amendment.

Really astonishing. The members across the aisle are actually starting to cooperate on substantive issues.

Congress is Congress'ing.

After the @RepJayapal and Bishop deal fell apart, California Dems teamed up with Issa and Jordan to gut the underlying bill by codifying the consumer welfare standard. After intense whipping, Nadler and Cicilline defeated it.

Now @jdanbishop offers an amendment to speed up the process of breaking up big tech, and Cicilline is asking questions to understand it. Interesting. The law avoids antitrust enforcers, sets up a special three judge panel and an expedited appeal to the Supreme Court.

The essence of the Bishop amendment to break up big tech.

https://twitter.com/margarethmcgill/status/1408131544078766082?s=20

It might be. I haven't seen the text of the amendment and I'm increasingly suspicious here.

https://twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1408132892480487425

The Bishop amendment goes down on a straightforward partisan vote. I don't really understand the full implications of the Bishop amendment but it looks good to me. It would replace the regulatory designation with an expedited legal process.

And the Judiciary committee votes 21-20 to pass the structural separation bill on big tech.