JUST IN: GOP Senators introduce legislation to end MLB's special immunity from antitrust laws

hello thanks for joining us today we're here today to talk about legislation to remove the antitrust exemption that's long been enjoyed by major league baseball it's important to remember that this exemption was created from whole cloth by the supreme court 99 years ago in an opinion authored by justice oliver wendell holmes jr the supreme court said that major league baseball simply would not be covered by our antitrust laws that means that this exemption never saw the light of day in congress it was not put in place legislatively it is a distinctively legislative decision it's not a ruling that it enjoys any support either from the statutory text or anything in the constitution we have to remember the reason we have antitrust laws to begin with we have them because we want to protect competition competition is good because we found over time that competition tends to bring down prices and it tends to increase quality when we allow people to collude to engage in activity to enhance and perpetuate their own market dominance and defend their own monopolistic position competition itself suffers and especially consumers suffer so if we are going to deviate from the norm established by our antitrust laws those deviations need to be considered and carefully weighed and balanced and they need to be ultimately enacted by congress not simply put in place by the supreme court now yes this is precedent is precedent that has been in place since nineteen twenty two but it's not precedent that we're powerless to address in fact we have the ability of true legislation to undo it and that's precisely what we're doing there's no reason that major league baseball should be treated any differently than any other professional sports leagues in america no reason why they ought to have preferential treatment relatives to the nfl or the nba or any other professional athletic organization or is there to my knowledge any decent argument why baseball is itself different from any of those other sports or why uh major league baseball should enjoy exemptions not held by other corporations generally regardless of whether they have anything to do with professional sports this is good legislation this is the type of legislative housekeeping that we need to undertake from time to time especially when we discover that the supreme court of the united states has impermissively stepped into the legislative thicket that's our job and our job is ultimately about protecting competition i'm grateful to be joined uh by my two friends and colleagues senator cruz from texas and senator hawley from missouri we will now hear from them in that order thank you mike this last month has seen a significant and indeed a dramatic change in our country and not a change for the good this past month we have seen the rise of the woke corporation we have seen the rise of big business enforcing a woke standard it's always been the case that big business wants to get in bed with big government it's always been the case that big business seeks handouts seeks subsidies seeks special benefits at the expense of the little guy at the expense of the small business but in the past month these woke corporations have decided to become the political enforcer for democrats in washington they've made the decision to get in bed even at the price of spreading disinformation what prompted this legislation being introduced was major league baseball's decision to pull the all-star game out of atlanta georgia it did so based on a pile of lies it did so based on an assertion that legislation the georgia legislature took up to protect voter integrity somehow disenfranchised georgia voters that is demonstrably false the legislation georgia passed expanded early voting in georgia it also required identification to vote i would note major league baseball if you go to a game right now and pick up your tickets at the will call ticket booth they'll ask you for identification to vote so major league baseball understands the value of identification and they apparently don't think they're being bigoted racist when they ask you for a driver's license to pick up your tickets but they decided to play politics with voting and elections in georgia joe biden similarly spread partisan lies about the georgia law so much so that the washington post partly a white right-wing outlet the washington post predictably leans left predictably leans democratic the washington post fact checked joe biden on the georgia law and gave him four pinocchios their worst rating for spreading partisan lies about it and major league baseball's decision is indefensible on the merits they made a decision to pull the all-star game out of a city that is 51 percent african-american and move it to denver a city that is nine percent african-american i would note also that the new georgia law gives georgia voters two more days of early voting than denver allows this was not about voting this was about virtue signaling and this was about punishment major league baseball made the decision that the more than half of its fans who happen to be republicans are now disfavored and that voting voter fraud is not a concern legislatures should focus on that decision was harmful it's going to hurt baseball but it also underscores that there's no reason major league baseball should enjoy special subsidies corporate welfare that no one else gets as mike lee explained major league baseball has had an exemption from the antitrust laws for nearly a hundred years it was made up by the u s supreme court it's been in effect nearly a hundred years the other major sports leagues don't enjoy that exception the nfl doesn't have that exception the nba doesn't have that exception somehow those sports leagues manage to do just fine but baseball gets this very special carve out of corporate welfare from washington they don't have to play by the same rules everybody else does and we're standing here today to say major league baseball should have to play by the same rules and if they're going to play partisan enforcer they shouldn't expect to see special goodies from washington when they are dishonestly acting to favor one party against the other and doing so in a way that is hurting thousands of small businesses in the city of atlanta many of which are owned by african americans thousands of african-american workers in the city of atlanta who were hurt by major league baseball's woke dishonest decision that we're standing against senator hawley thank you very much you know i think the last few weeks have made something very clear that has always been true in american history and that is monopoly and liberty do not go together monopoly is the enemy of the people's freedom that's certainly true of major league baseball it's true of big tech it's true of the monopolies that we see more and more across our economy when you have concentrations of economic power political power follows now we've seen this before in american history this is not unfamiliar to us a century ago massive corporations the railroads u.s steel attempted to amass economic power and succeeded they attempted to amass political power and for a time succeeded and we know what the solution to that is the solution is you break them up the solution is trust busting and that's exactly what needs to occur today this is about preserving the ability of the democratic process to go forward the fact that major league baseball would get together and try to punish a state because the elected representatives of that state and the elected governor of that state settled on a law to preserve election integrity is unbelievable but of course major league baseball's not the only one we had news just this past weekend that a hundred ceos of the largest corporations in the world met together to talk about how they are going to launch some sort of plan to influence other states across the country this is exactly what the railroad barons tried to do a century ago it's exactly the same thing it's trying to control the democratic process it's trying to leverage economic power to exert political influence it's trying to push forward a particular political and ideological agenda and the answer to this now is the same as the answer a century ago you got to break them up so it's time for a new round of trust busting in the united states major league baseball is a great place to start this is why i support senator lee's legislation proud to join him and senator cruz on it it's time that we sent a clear signal that first of all there shouldn't be these dramatic carve-outs in our anti-trust laws like the one the supreme court made up for major league baseball and it's also time that we sent the signal that no corporation is above the law that no corporation should be able to be a power in a state unto itself whether we're talking about major league baseball or whether we're talking about big tech or big pharma or big banks all of these corporations exist to serve our democracy the people of the united states and ultimately competition free open competition is the guarantor of liberty it's what protects the people's liberty is what protects our democratic process and we've gotta we've got to act now to ensure that there is that free robust competition again in all sectors of our economy and major league baseball is a great place to start i'm delighted to join this legislation questions i have a question a slightly unrelated matter this week leadership said he expects to bring forward senator verona's anti-asian american wheat field do you all anticipate reporting that even now as we're starting to hear that senator moranville may also our comments mm-hmm to it i look forward to the support from all of our democratic colleagues for our bill getting rid of the unfair antitrust exemption enjoyed by major league baseball look when they acted this way uh when they made this announcement about the all-star game my immediate thought was the this is the behavior of a monopolist when a monopolist behaves in certain ways you start to ask questions when we when we see anti-competitive behaviors of one sort or another when you see one actor dominating a particular field in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable when you look at some of the actions of companies in the tech sector for example like apple and facebook and google when you look at that sometimes you ask yourself the question why why are they doing this why would they insult half of their customer base why would they alienate this or that entity with uh with whom they've contracted very often when we're dealing with an antitrust issue the answer lies in monopoly status very often it exists in the fact that if you can get away with something if you can maintain monopolistic control over an industry then that empowers you to do that it makes you feel emboldened because you lack competition that's exactly what happened here that's why the first question i ask myself is why would they do this why would they enter into the contract with the city of atlanta why would they decide to do that and alienate that many of their viewers they lack competition and they've enjoyed that lack of competition for 99 years due to a judicial mistake but it's a judicial mistake we can correct and we intend to do so yeah people know that the nfl nba and hll have this protection they also don't have any leaks that rival them in the marketplace on that same level is the expectation that this would allow a rival league to spring up or is it more meant as a symbol adjuster particularly with two major league baseball teams what's what's the expectation that this means for those teams the short answer to the question your question is it's not done with the expectation or it desires to achieve a particular outcome in the marketplace whether or not some competitor springs up is entirely up to the marketplace and anyone uh potentially willing to pursue that sort of a thing so i i i neither know uh whether that will be the outcome nor do i have a a strong opinion about whether it should or will occur my point here is that of all of the factors that one should consider uh when deciding whether to form a league of any kind you ought not have to stop and think about the fact that an existing market incumbent will be able to collude against any upstarts and engage in other behavior that would otherwise violate antitrust laws because of some kind of exemption i would say brian i think that when you look at things sure when you look at this as you rightly point out other major sports leads don't have this exception for the antitrust laws so what it really amounts to for major league baseball is a huge subsidy you know senator cruz mentioned this i mean the carve out really represents government funding a major league baseball in a way that the nfl the nhl the nba don't get and don't have so this isn't about being anti-baseball it is about being pro-fairness pro-competition and it's about being anti-monopoly and there's no reason why baseball should enjoy special subsidies from this government of the american taxpayer when congress has never voted on it no american president ever signed it the supreme court invented it the league is effectively being subsidized with taxpayer dollars a way that no other league is why should they have that special carve out and get those special subsidies and i think their behavior now this monopolist behavior that senator lee is talking about really brings this issue to the fore i mean this is this is a league that increasingly wants to exert political influence and at the same time wants to get government handouts and government subsidies they just can't have it both ways well and let me point out also you brought up both football and basketball at various periods in history both football and basketball have had rival leagues that is always a potential that is a check on behavior in the marketplace and when it comes to major league baseball's exemption from the antitrust laws that's a special benefit only baseball gets that nobody else gets it's not just the existence of rival leagues it's anti-competitive behavior that baseball is allowed to carry out and and that is a special subsidy it is corporate welfare coming from washington and in this instance major league baseball is behaving with arrogance you know i thought senator lee actually pointed it out very well it's the arrogance of a monopolist it's the arrogance that they're counting on the fact that their fans have nowhere to go listen i'm a big houston astros fan i'm happy to cheer on the rangers as well but i love my astros i'll tell you there are a lot of baseball fans i know of who are pissed off at this move but at the same time don't necessarily want to turn off the tv and stop watching sports and the monopoly power they have they're counting on the fact that their customers are stuck that they can't go anywhere well they should play by the same rules everyone else should and they should stop engaging in dishonest politics this woke corporate america is based on lies it's based on being conscripted in to the democrats effort to pass h.r 1 the corrupt politicians act this is about seizing control of democracy so that only democrats can be elected and and corporate america is is willingly going along with that that is contrary to the interest of a whole lot of customers it's contrary to the interest of a whole lot of employees it's contrary to the interest of a whole lot of shareholders and it's contrary to the interest of a free and fair democracy which right now major league baseball has stood against and not only that they've struck a real blow against the city of atlanta a majority minority city 51 percent african-american and major league baseball has said those jobs then go jump in a lake it is wrong it's hypocritical and it needs to stop there's reporting that the white house is going to be uh withdrawing all through afghanistan by september 11th for whoever whomever would like to answer um if you can just comment on that timeline i want to add something my colleagues just mentioned by noting that i don't have the ability to peer into any conversations that may have occurred within the leadership of major league baseball i don't know whether this was exclusively a decision on their part to do a favor to the democratic party to help assist in the passage of of the illegal voting act hr one or or whether it was simply a business decision perhaps they had entered into a contract and made arrangements for atlanta and decided that um denver would be more economically advantageous for them and then they used this as pretext for it maybe they had some other reason i don't know my point is there are a lot of possibilities as to what subjectively motivated them but they did make this decision and it's a decision you wouldn't see from an entity that wasn't insulated from market competition by our antitrust laws that's why it's a problem uh as far as afghanistan withdrawal i'm glad to see us moving out i've got a daughter who was an infant when that war started she's now halfway through college i want to see us get out of there and a timely withdrawal seems like a good thing to me thank you guys um

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

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Keywords: ted cruz, josh hawley, MLB, mike lee

Id: x1XOsgad45o

Length: 19min 40sec (1180 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021