Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley unveiled new legislation on Monday aimed at breaking up big business, with a particular focus on large tech companies.
The “Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act” offers a solution to “anti-competitive big business” by strengthening antitrust enforcement and targeting mergers and acquisitions by large corporations, according to a press release. In addition to tech companies, Hawley criticized “Big Banks, Big Telecom, and Big Pharma.”
“A small group of woke mega-corporations control the products Americans can buy, the information Americans can receive, and the speech Americans can engage in. These monopoly powers control our speech, our economy, our country, and their control has only grown because Washington has aided and abetted their quest for endless power,” Hawley said in a statement.
The legislation includes bans on mergers and acquisitions by companies with a market cap of over $100 billion and reforms for the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts to ease the ability of federal regulators to break up dominant firms. (RELATED: Hawley Raises $3 Million In Three Months After Objecting To Biden’s Victory)
“This country and this government shouldn’t be run by a few mega-corporations,” Hawley told Axios. He also advised that the Republican Party “become the party of trust-busting once again. You know, that’s a part of our history.”
It’s time for a new era of trust busting. I’m introducing legislation to cut #BigTech and the mega corporations down to size https://t.co/WcXaZpO90E
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 12, 2021
Major corporations recently criticized Georgia’s new election law. On Saturday, corporate leaders held a Zoom call discussing plans to combat future election integrity bills passed by states. “Oligarchy defined: The most powerful corporations in America get together to plan how to control legislation in dozens of states,” Hawley tweeted in response to the meeting.
Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar released a similar antitrust bill in February, which Hawley praised. “I’m willing to work with her and anybody of any party and any background. I like a lot of what Senator Klobuchar has proposed,” he said at the time.
Rhode Island Democratic Rep. David Cicilline is also expected to propose antitrust legislation next month.