Today, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up a series of bills representing a radical overhaul of US antitrust laws. Here is what you need to read to get up to speed:

1. “The Criticism Keeps Coming In” — Thought leaders across the political spectrum have come out hard against the bills: Read what scholars, small business and consumer advocates, and associations are saying. 

2. “A Discrimination Bill Against Consumers” — CCIA’s Marianela Lopez-Galdos on Rep. Cicilline’s breakup bill: “[F]orcing leading tech companies to be broken into separate businesses will only harm consumers, and discriminate against U.S. competitiveness in favor of other jurisdictions.”

3. “An Attack on Multi-Sided Business Models” — Lopez-Galdos on Rep. Jayapal’s so-called “Glass-Steagall for the Internet”: “The main problem is that policy makers have not really analyzed how this legislation would impact consumers in the real world, in addition to being discriminatory and contrary to market economy principles.”  

4. “The Risk of Antitrust Balkanization” — Lopez-Galdos on Rep. Buck’s proposal to do away with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML). “[A]ccording to Rep. Buck’s venue bill, antitrust state litigation would be carved out from the JPML process, leaving antitrust jurisprudence at risk of balkanization. Moreover, if this bill passes, antitrust litigation may also be at risk from politicization eventually undermining the rule of law.”  

5. “Do your job, and we’ll do ours” — say 6,000 small businesses. “In China, the government picks business winners and losers. In America, we believe in free and fair markets and real competition. Autocratic laws that punish success through government oversight and over-reach are unAmerican. They do not help me or my community’s local small businesses. I do not want them.”  

6. “Unintended Consequences” — Asia/Pacific Islander American Chamber of Commerce and Entrepreneurship (ACE), Chamber of Progress, Latino Coalition, and U.S. Black Chambers. “[W]e write to call to your attention the potential unintended consequences of legislative strategies that would inadvertently put technology, information, or opportunity further out of reach for small businesses and other communities that have been left behind.”