Last week, Sen. Josh Hawley released a plan to reorganize the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Open Markets recognizes the value of a vibrant, well-staffed, and aggressive FTC to enforce the antitrust laws and promote vigorous competition. However, Sen. Hawley’s plan at best misses the mark and at worst would undermine the goals of the commission. Two aspects of his proposal are especially dangerous.

First, Sen. Hawley calls for the FTC’s enforcement division to be merged with the Department of Justice (DOJ), decreasing the number of federal antitrust agencies from two to one. Unfortunately, this runs directly contrary to the basic goal of Congress when it established the FTC in 1914: to create an organization that both checked the DOJ’s Antitrust Division and supplemented and complemented its powers. Indeed, Congress, in passing the Clayton Antitrust Act that same year, also established the same basic antitrust powers in every state of the union, and—through private right of action—in every citizen. The clear aim was to ensure that even if powerful private actors captured control of an administration or of the entire government in Washington, then the people would still be able to bring real power to bear against their corporations and banks.

Sen. Hawley’s second main error is to call for the leadership of the FTC to transform from a five-person commission into a single director. The main problem with this idea is that it would allow a strong director to hide from the public view most of the deliberations that take place within the FTC, without increasing in the slightest the likelihood that the commission would take strong action against private concentrations of power. The multi-member structure of the commission, combined with the requirement to publish decisions, ensures that debates within the agency help to educate the public and other enforcers, even when these debates do not result in actions against private monopolists.

While we applaud Sen. Hawley calling for more funding for research at the FTC, his present plan would severely weaken the federal government’s antitrust enforcement capacity. Open Markets has published many articles about the special importance and unique tools of the FTC. We encourage Sen. Hawley and other interested parties to consult our extensive work on the commission:

• Sandeep Vaheesan, Resurrecting“A Comprehensive Charter of Economic Liberty”: The Latent Power of the Federal Trade Commission.

• Sandeep Vaheesan, The FTC Might Just Be Progressives’ Secret Weapon.

• Lina Khan & K. Sabeel Rahman, Restoring Competition in the U.S. Economy.

• Open Markets Institute Comment to the FTC, How the Federal Trade Commission Can Help – Instead of Hurt – Workers.

• Open Markets Institute Comment to the FTC, Restoring an Open Marketplace for Product Repairs.

• Open Markets Institute Comment to the FTC, The Failure and Potential Redemption of Federal Merger Policy.