Sacramento, CA — In response to news that the California Law Revision Commission—a body whose responsibilities include recommending reforms to California antitrust law to the state legislature—has invited monopolist Google to present at an upcoming meeting on the subject of technology platform governance, the American Economic Liberties Project and a coalition of advocacy groups sent a letter calling on the Commission to retract its invitation.

“Inviting Google to speak on antitrust reform is like inviting a bank robber to draft criminal justice reform,” said Lee Hepner, Senior Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Google is an illegal monopolist that has already been found liable for violating state and federal antitrust law. To no one’s surprise, Google sees no need for reform. This Commission is capable of hearing multiple different perspectives on reform that don’t include the voice of illegal monopolists or their proxies. The Commission is giving Google multiple privileged seats at the table while other stakeholders—labor and consumer rights groups, journalists, small businesses and entrepreneurs and others—are left out.”

Google has an extensive and well-known history of run ins with the antitrust laws. In the December 2023 Epic Games v. Google verdict, a jury unanimously agreed that that Google had used a wide variety of anticompetitive deals to kill competition and lock software developers into its Play Store, confirming Google as an illegal monopolist. This was just the first domino to fall in a far-reaching reckoning against Google’s far-reaching dominance: the company currently faces lawsuits from the Department of Justice and several states for violating antitrust law to monopolize the online search and advertising technology markets, as well as numerous actions from European and Asian competition authorities.

Google’s track record of sabotaging public-interest antitrust policies and enforcement is also relevant in light of their inclusion in the Commission meeting. A major Wall Street Journal exposé published this month revealed that Google paid millions to disgraced George Mason University law professor Joshua Wright to undermine Obama-era antitrust actions against Google in academic and popular writings that often failed to disclose Google’s funding. Google’s financial support for Wright included hundreds of thousands of dollars it donated to GMU’s Law and Economics Center, which published Wright’s research, while Wright served as a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. During that time, Wright led a successful push to limit the FTC’s authority to police unfair and deceptive business practices.

Finally, the Commission’s invitation to Google is troubling in light of who was not invited: representatives of the many constituencies affected by platform monopolies like Google, from software developers and startups, to journalists and labor organizations. The letter submitted on behalf of American Economic Liberties Project, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and Rise Economy questions whether this decision reflects the Commission’s mandate to outline a path to reform and modernize California’s antitrust laws in the broader public interest, following examples like the 21st Century Antitrust Act in New York.

Read the full letter here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.