Monday Memo #79: Senator Josh Hawley, Stanford Graduate, Embraces Power Politics
By Noah Howard and Jackson Vachal
Start your week off right, with a round-up of Stanford-related news from Stanford Politics.
Senator Josh Hawley, Stanford Graduate, Embraces Power Politics
As a leader of Republican efforts to contest Joe Biden’s election, Missouri senator Josh Hawley (‘02) has placed himself at the center of the American political maelstrom. Hawley was the first senator to publicly state that he would vote against certifying the results of the 2020 election and has held fast to false allegations of voter fraud, even after a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building. A recent Politico article by a former Stanford Politics editor-in-chief examines Hawley’s intellectual and political development as a Stanford undergraduate. Featuring interviews with the senator’s former faculty mentors and several of his Stanford classmates, the piece describes a young man of prodigious talent who sacrificed his integrity in pursuit of power. At Stanford, Hawley was an unusually committed and adept scholar who Professor David Kennedy, Hawley’s major adviser, called, “arguably the most gifted student I taught in 50 years.” Other faculty and students noticed his earnest intellectual engagement and clear desire to hold political office. Former Stanford history professor Brad Gregory even predicted to faculty colleagues during Hawley’s undergraduate years that Hawley would become “at least a U.S. senator.” Two decades later, Hawley’s baseless disputation of the 2020 election has left his classmates and advisers in tempered disbelief. Said Kennedy, “I absolutely could not have predicted that the bright, idealistic, clear-thinking young student that I knew would follow this path.” And yet, despite surprise at Hawley’s political cynicism, the ambition driving it seems to have been clear from a young age. Now, the freshman senator’s actions have left him in a precarious political position. Seven democratic senators have lodged a complaint against Hawley and Senator Ted Cruz for undermining the legitimacy of the election. The two Republicans will be investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee in the coming weeks. In response, Hawley has filed a counter-complaint against the seven Democrats in the same Senate committee.
Stanford Law School Antitrust Project To Involve Justice Department
On January 19, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it will join the Computational Antitrust Project hosted by Stanford Law School’s CodeX Center for computational law. The fledgling project, founded by Professor Thibault Schrepel, brings together legal academics, attorneys, computer scientists, policymakers, and antitrust agencies to study how digital tools can be used to implement antitrust laws designed for a pre-digital age. Founded this month, the project plans to publish papers on the application of computational methods to antitrust policy, hold workshops, and provide annual reports detailing the project’s findings and activities. As a member of the project’s network, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division will be involved in workshops and discussions investigating how antitrust policy and enforcement can be updated to remain effective in the twenty-first century. According to the Department, the decision to join the Stanford project is part of a larger effort to modernize the Antitrust Division in the face of rapidly increasing market complexity and the rise of novel market sectors. Said Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division Makan Delrahim, "There are important debates happening today about how we should enforce the antitrust laws, but everyone agrees that enforcement agencies should make decisions using the best tools available."
Robinhood Co-founders in Hot Water After Trade Restrictions
This week Stanford graduate and CEO of Robinhood Vlad Tenev finds his company the target of multiple class action lawsuits after restricting purchases of thirteen securities on its platform. The most prominent among these is GameStop which saw an over 500% rise in its share value last week before crashing shortly after Robinhood and other trading platforms blocked trading. In multiple interviews, Tenev states that this move was done as a precautionary measure in case a large number of these investments were to fail and Robinhood had to cover these costs itself. Tenev also emphasized that the company does not have and has not had any issues covering its clients’ positions. However, while Robinhood restricted purchases of GameStop, it raised an additional 1 billion dollars in emergency funds from its investors. These actions have led to some rare instances of bipartisan agreement where Sen. Ted Cruz declared his support of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s call to investigate these trading restrictions. Presently, the future chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Rep. Maine Waters of the House Financial Services Committee announced that they will hold hearings to investigate this matter in both committees.
And in case you missed it…
What will happen with Big Tech in the Biden Administration? (Frank | Stanford Politics)
Conflict of Interests: Fossil Fuel Money in Environmental Research at Stanford (Pang | Stanford Politics)
Congressman Adam Schiff warns of U.S. cybersecurity vulnerabilities (Iskandarsjach | The Stanford Daily)
Biden Administration must find ways to both cooperate with and constrain Putin regime, says Stanford scholar (de Witte | Stanford University News)
About the Authors
Noah Howard ’22 is pursuing majors in Economics and International Relations with a minor in Iranian Studies. Living in Washington D.C., he is currently writing a thesis about the role of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Iranian Politics.
Jackson Vachal ’22 is pursuing majors in Political Science and Philosophy, with a focus on democratic theory. A San Francisco native, he is interested in social entrepreneurship and nonprofit advocacy work.
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