The Expediting Act

Antitrust’s golden age, the early 20th century, resulted in a series of major wins and the breakup of massive monopolies which threatened competition and consumers. Some of those major victories, including the breakup of Standard Oil, was due to Theodore Roosevelt’s Expediting Act.

The act made two crucial changes to American jurisprudence:

• Cases the attorney general deemed to be of particular importance were to be heard speedily at the lower court levels

• Antitrust cases were automatically appealed to the Supreme Court, which had to quickly take the case

This simple change allowed for successive presidential administrations to make cases significantly faster.

But the bill became a victim of its own success. By the mid-1980s, most major trusts were broken up, and the Supreme Court was complaining about their time being taken up with small cases. So it was repealed, along with a host of other older laws.

Today, the situation is changed. New technologies, from search engines to AI, have allowed for dangerous new monopolies to emerge. By bringing back the Expediting Act, governments of both parties will have the opportunity to quickly smash these trusts before they become too powerful to control.