Filing: California is seeking to join the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit against Google, making it the first Democratic state to request to join 11 GOP AGs in the suit
Lauren Feiner / CNBC :
Context & Ripple Effects
The [[a:959179|DOJ and eleven Republican state AGs filed their search and search-advertising monopolization suit against Google]] back in October, after reporting in September that about a dozen mostly-GOP states were weighing whether to join while drafting complaints of their own. California's motion is the first crack in that partisan lineup: the largest Democratic state now wants into a case built entirely by Republicans.
Why it matters for Google: bipartisan participation narrows the argument that the suit is a political exercise, and it foreshadows the pattern that materialized later when Illinois, Michigan and seven other states joined the ad-tech portion of the case in 2023.
First-order effects
- Google now faces the prospect of defending its search and search-advertising conduct before a coalition spanning both parties, with California's attorney general adding resources and discovery demands to the existing DOJ-led case.
- The eleven Republican AGs gain their most populous co-plaintiff, strengthening the states' standing to seek remedies in their own markets.
Second-order effects
- Other Democratic AGs, who so far have stayed out while readying separate complaints per earlier reporting, face pressure to either follow California into the DOJ case or explain why their states sit out a now-bipartisan effort.
- A broader plaintiff pool raises the cost of any settlement Google might negotiate, since remedies would need to satisfy both federal enforcers and a politically mixed set of states.
Third-order effects
- If Democratic states keep joining as they did through 2023, antitrust enforcement against major platforms shifts from a partisan flashpoint toward a durable, multi-state structure that outlasts any single administration's enforcement priorities.
The trend: Platform antitrust enforcement in the US is broadening from an all-Republican state coalition into bipartisan, multi-state litigation that persists across election cycles.