Amazon and the Antitrust Black Hole
Earlier this week I wrote an article explaining why, when I vote in federal elections, I look past the candidates and consider the kinds of judges they will appoint and confirm. I said I did this for two reasons: first, unlike politicians who can be removed from office by the voters, federal judges serve for life; and second, it’s actually easier to predict how judges will behave in individual cases than to guess exactly where a particular administration will end up going on any given issue.
My thesis in that article was that for the last forty-plus years, judges appointed by Republicans have transferred more and more power away from voters, workers, and ordinary people, and given it to politicians, lobbyists, big corporations, and law enforcement agencies. Judges appointed by Democrats, on the other hand, have pushed in the opposite direction. That’s why I vote for Democrats: not because I always agree with their politicians, but because I agree with the decisions rendered by their judges.
I didn’t talk about the issue of antitrust law in that article, but I certainly could have. Antitrust is another area of the law where conservative judges have tended to give greater power to large corporations, while liberal judges have sided with small businesses and consumers.
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