Major League Baseball should lose its decades-old antitrust exemption, two Republican US senators said Friday night, April 2.
US Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah both reacted after MLB announced it would be relocating this year’s All-Star Game and 2021 draft from Georgia over its new voting law.
“Why does @MLB still have antitrust immunity?” Lee tweeted. “It’s time for the federal government to stop granting special privileges to specific, favored corporations—especially those that punish their political opponents.”
In his message, Lee retweeted a post by US Rep. Jeff Duncan (Republican – South Carolina) who was vowing to take similar action in the US House. Cruz then added that he and Lee would be working “hard to END MLB’s antitrust immunity.”
MLB’s antitrust exemption has been in place since a 1922 Supreme Court decision ruled that the league is a sport and not a business. The National Football League, National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League don’t have the same exemption.
Cruz in another tweet, linked to the corporate sponsors he said pressured MLB to move the game.
“Do all of them oppose voter ID? Are all of them willing to be the woke enforcers of the corrupt Democratic Party? And do all hate the 75m who voted for Trump?” he wrote.
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