Lina Khan’s Nomination for FTC Commissioner Advances in the Senate With Bipartisan Support

The Senate Commerce Committee has advanced the nomination of tech critic Lina Khan, President Joe Biden’s pick for commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. Khan won bipartisan approval from the committee on May 12, earning support from all but four GOP members. 

The panel agreed to move forward with Khan’s nomination by voice vote. As per news reports, Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wy.) asked to be recorded as opposed to putting Khan on the FTC.

“Khan’s support from Republicans — eight of the panel’s 12 GOP members voted in her favor — may indicate growing bipartisan appetite for reining in major online platforms like Google, Facebook and Apple,” noted Politico. 

Republicans who supported her, joined Democrats in praising Khan’s work critiquing big tech companies. “I believe she is focused on addressing one of the most pressing issues of the day: reigning in the big social media platforms,” said ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).  

“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.” 

Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), a leading GOP big tech critic who has proposed a bill to revamp antitrust laws, earlier this month told Washington Post Live he is “impressed” with Khan’s background and track record. 

The Hill reported that “Khan would be joining the FTC at a critical time. The agency is engaged in a lawsuit against Facebook, along with attorneys general across the country, suing the social media giant over allegations of anti-competitive acquisitions.”

If confirmed, Khan, 32, will fill the seat vacated by former FTC Chairman Joseph Simons. Her confirmation will also create a 3-2 Democratic majority, with Khan, Rohit Chopra, and Rebecca Slaughter (who currently serves as Acting Chair.) If confirmed, she will be the 18th woman to serve as FTC commissioner, and the third Asian-American Pacific Islander after her former boss, Rohit Chopra, and Commissioner Dennis Yao, a Democrat nominated to the agency by President George H.W. Bush. 

As an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School, Khan teaches and writes on antitrust law, infrastructure industries law, and the antimonopoly tradition.

She previously served as a legal fellow in Chopra’s office in 2018. The two wrote a paper last year arguing the FTC has the authority to craft new rules targeting anticompetitive practices, an idea gaining traction at the agency. She went on to serve as majority counsel for the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, “helping shape a sweeping report published after a year-long investigation,” Axios reported.

According to Politico, the White House is delaying Chopra’s confirmation as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, until Khan is confirmed “to avoid the 2-1 Republican majority” that would result if Chopra were to resign from the FTC before Simons’ seat is filled. Khan’s confirmation hearing marks a watershed moment in federal efforts to rein in big tech companies. Although Khan has helped define broad new ways to think about how antitrust law should apply to modern technology companies, Politico notes that “a seat on the FTC which has the power to investigate and sue companies, would put her at the center of D.C.’s regulatory action.”

As an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School, Khan teaches and writes on antitrust law, infrastructure industries law, and the antimonopoly tradition. Prior to joining Columbia, Khan served as counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, where she led the congressional investigation into digital markets and the publication of its final report.

For the past four years, the FTC was led by Ajit Pai, who resigned in January. Pai’s tenure at the nation’s top telecoms agency was both controversial and consequential, with the ending of net neutrality and telecom deregulation. 

Khan’s academic work “examines the limits of the current paradigm in antitrust law, assessing how its welfare-based framework fails to capture empirical realities and betrays the republican origins of antitrust,” as per her website.  Several of her projects “have focused on how dominant digital-era firms freshly reveal these shortcomings and demand an approach to anti monopoly that is animated by questions of power, distribution, and democracy.” Her work has been published by the Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, The University of Chicago Law Review, and The Yale Law Journal.

During law school, Khan litigated on behalf of homeowners through Yale’s Mortgage Foreclosure Litigation Clinic and spent summers at law firms Gupta Wessler and Cohen Milstein, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Khan is a graduate of Williams College and Yale Law School, where was awarded the Reinhardt Fellowship for public interest law. She was among several South Asian Americans named in Time Next 100, highlighting emerging leaders who are shaping the future.

Khan was born in London and moved to the U.S. with her family at age 11. A Williams College graduate, she earned a JD from Yale University, where she served as submissions editor of the Yale Journal on Regulation. Before joining Yale, she worked at the New America Foundation, where she did anti-monopoly research and wrote for the Open Markets Program. She is married to Shah Ali, a cardiologist.