Senator Gallego at Anti-Monopoly Summit: ‘We’re here to even the playing field between the corporations and the consumer’

WASHINGTON - Today, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) joined the American Economic Liberties Project's (AELP) Anti-Monopoly Summit. In a conversation with AELP's Executive Director Nidhi Hegde, Senator Gallego underscored the impact of corporate price gouging on working families and his efforts to push back.

Watch the full conversation HERE.

On how Democrats' economic messaging can break through:

"I think anything that empowers the consumer, the everyday person, is going to be a very popular message. So it can be like an antitrust, anti monopoly, anti big business message, but it has to be centered on the person and making their life better and/or easier. The problem you have in this country right now is that people that have been listening to the rules of the road-they went to college, they kept their nose clean, they married someone else who does well, they're making about $100,000 a year-they feel no advantage."

"Anything that we can do to make that person have a little more at the end of the month will make a huge difference."

"So the democratic message needs to be centered on how we can make people's lives more affordable. And that will be to make sure that we have a real party that is fighting for the consumer, for the American to have lower costs […] and an easier life. And I think if we do that, that's a winning message. It can win in any cycle, in almost any state, in any environment."

On corporate consolidation and price gouging:

"What you're seeing with the power of corporations and their consolidation, is that it's making it more and more expensive for that everyday person. It's not a theoretical antitrust situation. This is more of how people are living now."

"What we've seen, for example, in terms of consolidation that's really affected us, number one, grocery stores. One of the reasons why I was strongly against the Kroger grocery store consolidations, [is] because it would that would disproportionately affect working class families. You have one massive grocery store, you're going to have one store that can control prices. In areas like such as mine, they would have shut down grocery stores. […] In Arizona, we've seen really consolidation of our pharmaceuticals. The mom-and-pop pharmacies that used to be the bedrock of a lot of these communities are just nonexistent, and [larger pharmacies are], of course, again, driving up prices."

"We do have to kind of look out for that the old school ways of what we used to understand of monopolistic entities aren't the same [image] that I think a lot of us grew up [with], kind of in the robber and baron era […] with twirling their mustaches and […] top hats. Now, a lot of time it's going to be like the guy who's drinking the matcha tea and wearing the gray sweatshirt, and going to whatever yoga classes. Those entities, those people, are just going to be as bad as for consumers, as some of the old school robber barons that really robbed a lot of Americans for generations. […] It's still price fixing, whether I use algorithms, or it's a bunch of guys talking to each other in the back room."

On AI-based surveillance pricing technology, including his efforts to push back on Delta's plans to use an AI pricing model to set airfare:

"It was predatory […] it tilts the power towards the airlines versus the consumer, and the consumer doesn't have all the information."

"You're dealing with multi billion-dollar corporations with years and years of experience with the capability to hire some of the smartest data scientists in the world to maximize profitability. And because of the nature of how corporate is run, it is their responsibility to find a way to maximize profits, or else they're going to get sued by their shareholders. The government does not have to answer to that. We're here to even the playing field between the corporations and the consumer."

"I'm very concerned about some of the grocery companies that are also thinking about doing that […] I'm sure you guys have heard of […] electronic sticker price tags where as you're walking by it could be changing the price. Imagine how crazy that is. What kind of dystopian world are we living in? […] It's just a world that we don't want. It's also, again, not even fair, nor is it what we truly understand of capitalism. The one-way information flow is only moving towards the people that already have as much power [as possible] and against the consumer."

On his bill to codify the FTC's Click-to-Cancel rule to make cancelling subscriptions easier:

"Who doesn't sign up for a free trial of something? […] Just because we may be suckers that one time, it doesn't mean they have a right to make it extremely difficult for us to get out of that. Whether it's your gym membership, whether it's some type of subscription, online subscription model, whatever it is, you should be able to get in and out of that. […]"

"The reason I jumped on it is because […] it just drove me nuts thinking that we're making it more difficult for people to be financially responsible. We as a government have always been talking about, we want the American consumer, the taxpayer, to also be financially responsible, and yet we're allowing traps to continue, essentially to increase corporate profits."

"We, Congress, have a right to regulate commerce, and I think this is one of those areas where we certainly should."

9/16/25