Ted the destroyer: Sen. Cruz inserts a poison pill into an important bill to help journalism

The Journalism Competition and Protection Act is designed to rebalance the terribly tilted scales in America’s information economy. It would create a four-year safe harbor from antitrust laws for news organizations — newspapers, websites, TV and radio stations, no matter which way they tilt politically — to come together and negotiate better terms with social media behemoths.

As local journalism suffers all across America, the task is urgent. Which apparently makes the legislation a perfect target for mischief courtesy of a smart aleck senator from Texas.

It’s an accident of history that internet giants like Google and Facebook have been free to gobble up billions of dollars in advertising revenue using content they didn’t create, leaving news organizations to fight over crumbs. The JCPA would at long last give these Davids collective bargaining power to strike a better deal with the Goliaths.

In the House, the JCPA’s lead sponsor is New York’s Jerry Nadler. In the Senate, Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar. There’s strong bipartisan support, with 20 House Republicans (including Matt Gaetz and Joe Wilson) and seven Senate Republicans (including John Thune, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and Rand Paul) joining Dems.

Deepest shame on a man without any, Ted Cruz, for trying to drive a rift in the emerging consensus. In a committee markup Thursday, he inserted an amendment curbing social media platforms’ ability to moderate content. It’s got nothing to do with the purpose of the main bill — and happens to be an assault on the freedom of expression that Cruz pretends to treasure. Under the First Amendment, the government isn’t supposed to tell private companies what speech they can and can’t permit.

Thanks to Cruz, a good bill now looks fatally wounded. The guy’s got a talent for destroying things. What has he ever created?