China Select Committee Members Defend Bill Banning TikTok in DC Circuit

The chair and ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, along with a bipartisan group of 53 representatives, filed an amicus brief last week in the suit against the TikTok ban to support the constitutionality of the ban (see 2406070023) (TikTok v. Merrick Garland, D.C. Cir. # 24-1113).

Chair of the committee, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and ranking member, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., said in the brief that the bill banning the Chinese-owned app doesn't regulate speech and instead is centered on the "regulation of foreign adversary control." The bill "provides a clear path forward for affected companies to resolve the national security threats posed by their current ownership structures," the pair said.

Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi also said Congress operated within its authority, adding that the bill "is narrower than numerous other restrictions on foreign ownership that Congress has enacted in other statutory regimes." They pointed to the recent work of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., including a CFIUS decision that required the divestiture of the dating app Grindr.

The bill forcing the sale or divesture of TikTok "complements the much broader authority granted to CFIUS by regulating with particularity a narrowly defined class of foreign adversary controlled applications," the amicus brief said.

The brief also responded to TikTok's claim that it would prefer an "executive judgment" instead of a congressional one. The lawmakers argued that this claim "overlooks Congress's power to regulate both foreign commerce and its power to regulate domestic interstate commerce." The fact that Congress decided to take action itself instead of delegating this issue to the executive branch "is, if anything, a point in the statute's favor," the congressmen said.