The nomination of tech critic Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will move to a full Senate vote after a committee voted Wednesday, May 12, to report the nomination favorably, reported MSN.
Only four Republican members of the Senate Commerce Committee voted against the measure: Sens. Marsha Blackburn (Republican – Tennessee), Mike Lee (Republican – Utah), Cynthia Lummis (Republican – Wyoming), and Dan Sullivan (Republican – Alaska).
Blackburn and Lee in particular had previously expressed skepticism about Khan’s nomination, pointing to what they said was a lack of experience. At 32, Khan would be the youngest commissioner to serve, if confirmed.
But the committee’s top Republican, Sen. Roger Wicker (Republican – Mississippi) voiced optimism in Khan’s nomination ahead of Wednesday’s vote.
“I believe she is focused on addressing one of the most pressing issues of the day: reining in the big social media platforms,” he said. “However, I do remain concerned that a broadly over-regulatory approach as an FTC commissioner could have a negative effect on the economy and undermine free market principles.”
Khan made her name in antitrust circles after publishing “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” in the Yale Law Journal while a student in 2017. The article examined the ways that the commonly-used consumer welfare standard, often defined by looking at whether prices go up or down, could miss important anticompetitive behavior in digital markets like the one in which Amazon operates.
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