The Republican Party has split on antitrust legislation in its approach to limiting the influence of Big Tech, with Reps. Ken Buck (R-CO) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) pulling the House conference in different directions.
With companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Meta growing in power and sway, House Republicans have become increasingly skeptical of the platforms. They have accused them of censoring conservatives and become worried that the companies are working with the government to regulate speech.
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Yet there is a split among conservatives eager to change the situation, as exemplified by Jordan, who is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Buck, who is the author of bipartisan legislation aimed at the tech sector. The tools favored by the two differ. Buck, a staunch conservative, has endorsed breaking up the companies through antitrust. Jordan, on the other hand, has resisted conservative calls to use the power of the government to shape companies through antitrust and instead has called for focusing on the government's role by conducting oversight and advancing legislation to remove internet protections.
"Jordan and Buck both have extraordinary conservative records in Congress," Dan Schneider, vice president of Free Speech America, told the Washington Examiner. "But they have very different views on how to address big tech abuses."
In the last Congress, Buck aligned himself with liberal Democrats on bipartisan measures to increase antitrust scrutiny of the largest tech companies. The former Colorado prosecutor has made clear that he favors a more significant role for the federal government in counterbalancing the market and political influence of Big Tech, a stance long rejected by his party but that has gained currency among conservatives as they've found themselves opposed to tech gatekeepers on culture war issues.
Buck described himself as a recent convert to supporting the breakup of Big Tech. He said he changed his mind on the subject after attending a 2020 hearing on competitors in the digital marketplace. “I went into that hearing thinking that the free market would address the issues that we were facing in this area,” Buck told CPR News. “And I left recognizing that there isn't a free market, that these monopolies have dominated the marketplace and are acting in an anti-competitive way to continue to dominate the marketplace.”
Jordan, on the other hand, has expressed distrust of federal agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission. As an alternative to antitrust measures, the Ohio Republican has put a strong emphasis on reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from liability for content posted by users.
When the House Judiciary Committee released a report on tech antitrust in April 2021, Jordan filed a dissent against the report, bringing the division to a forefront. He stated that while the report did conclude that Meta, Google, and Amazon functioned like monopolies, the proposed rule changes "would overhaul antitrust laws that apply to every sector of the American economy" rather than narrowing the focus toward the online marketplace.
Jordan opposed two of the most important bipartisan bills put forward by Buck, including the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which would have prevented Big Tech companies from "self-preferencing" their own products on their platforms by providing regulators additional powers, and the Open App Markets Act, which would have required Google and Apple to allow third-party app providers on their platforms. AICOA was advanced by the House and Senate to the floor for consideration, while the Open Apps Market Act only advanced in the Senate. Neither bill received a vote on the floor.
Jordan also proposed legislation that would have stripped companies including Twitter, Facebook, and Google of Section 230 protections based on their content moderation decisions.
This inspiration draws from a narrower view of how antitrust policy should be applied. "Where a lot of his colleagues have given up on free market positions as sort of a guiding principle to go after Big Tech, Jim Jordan has stuck by his guns," said Josh Withrow of the R Street Institute, a libertarian think tank.
The conflict between the two approaches played a role in Buck being snubbed for the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust. Some observers had expected Buck to take over on that subcommittee when the GOP took over the House, as he had been the top Republican on the panel in the previous term. Jordan instead appointed libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to lead the committee. Massie is expected to focus on reining in regulators and the administrative state rather than advancing measures to clip the wings of Big Tech.
"Thomas didn't support any of the antitrust bills that came to the committee in the last Congress, and Jim didn't support them," Buck told the Washington Examiner. "And so I'm assuming that Jim wanted someone more aligned with his views on antitrust and Big Tech."
The amount of support within the House GOP conference for the two approaches is a bit murky. Jordan has the support of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), while Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) appear more open to legislation reining in Big Tech's monopolistic power.
The choice of Massie over Buck led some conservative Big Tech critics to criticize Jordan. Jordan "is giving at least two more years of antitrust amnesty to trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists that crush the competition, shutter small businesses, and cancel conservatives," tweeted Internet Accountability Project President Mike Davis.
"They're going to try to attack the administrative state," Matt Stoller, director of research at the left-leaning American Economic Liberties Project, told the Washington Examiner. Stoller said Massie and Jordan's approach to antitrust would help "dominant firms" such as Google and Meta while diminishing the power of agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission.
It wasn't the first time Jordan, long known as one of the most pugnacious conservatives in the lower chamber, has faced skepticism from the right. Fox News host and Big Tech critic Tucker Carlson, for instance, in 2020 confronted Jordan for receiving tens of thousands of dollars in political donations from Big Tech companies between 2012 and 2020. Jordan defended himself then by saying that the donations did not change his priorities and that he has still been tough on Google.
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Buck received similar contributions in the past but vowed in 2021 to stop accepting donations from Big Tech companies to ensure he could hold them accountable.
The next few months could determine the course of GOP tech policy. The most ideal circumstance, Schneider said, would be if Buck, Massie, and Jordan seek a compromise in tandem with fellow Big Tech critic Rogers, the chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. "If all four of them could work together on a big bill that would include some kind of antitrust provision, that would produce the best outcome," Schneider said.