This commentary is by David Balto, an antitrust commentator and a former assistant director for policy and evaluation in the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission and trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

Supporting small businesses over big companies is in Vermonters’ DNA. The Green Mountain State was the first state to ban roadside billboards, and our tax code is written to support mom-and-pop shops over large corporations. Montpelier is the only state capital without a McDonald’s or a Starbucks. So why, days after a federal jury sided with Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark and more than 30 other states, ruling that Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation were operating an illegal monopoly, is the state Legislature advancing a policy that will help this corporation invade our state while undercutting our attorney general’s antitrust suit?

Live Nation, which owns and operates some of the largest music venues across the country, and Ticketmaster, which controls roughly 80% of the country’s initial ticket sales, merged in 2010. Since then, ticket prices are up 120%. 

Since the merger, Live Nation-Ticketmaster has used tactics like the “velvet hammer” — withholding concerts from venues they do not control or work with — to consolidate power. Then they force fans to pay sky-high fees, from marking up parking passes to forcing venues to only sell water from a brand Live Nation owns. In internal messages, employees even bragged about how they “gouge” fans and joked they were “robbing them blind.” 

It’s no surprise that, after a decade and a half of antitrust violations, the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly made $25 billion last year. 

Now, the company, which doesn’t own any venues in Vermont, appears poised to establish a foothold in the Green Mountain State with the help of a well-intentioned but poorly executed bill working its way through Montpelier.

Lawmakers are considering legislation that would cap the price of event tickets being resold at no more than 10% above face value. The measure was recently approved by the House and is currently moving through the Senate. 

On its face, the idea sounds appealing: Cracking down on excessive markups should be a win for fans. But the fact that Live Nation-Ticketmaster, which was just found to be operating an illegal monopoly that harmed fans, venues and artists, has supported price caps like those proposed in H.512 in Washington, D.C., California, New York, Minnesota and Ontario should give Vermonters pause.

This billion-dollar corporation doesn’t support ticket resale price caps because it’s good for fans. The company advocates for this policy because the caps don’t apply to “primary” ticket sales: the original point of sale, of which Ticketmaster controls 80%. Instead, the price caps would only apply to resale marketplaces — hitting the only companies that compete with the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly.

Less competition means more power and higher profits for Live Nation-Ticketmaster.

In most states, price caps would consolidate Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s control and allow it to raise ticket prices even further. In Vermont, H.512 may be the final ingredient it needs to enter the state, and, to quote its executives, “boil the frog” — using monopoly power to slowly squeeze out our independent music venues.

With this legislation moving through the Statehouse, Live Nation-Ticketmaster is already establishing a foothold in the Green Mountain State. Earlier this month, it announced a partnership with CashorTrade, a Vermont-based ticketing platform.  

But Live Nation-Ticketmaster doesn’t even need to operate in our state to benefit if Vermont passes this law. If Vermont, which prides itself on pushing back against corporate power, enacts resale price caps, we hand Live Nation-Ticketmaster a powerful talking point to advance its power grab in additional states. We become a critical data point; an example of what “good policy” looks like.

H.512 includes some real, positive policies that help venues and consumers, but the price cap provision that came along for the ride squarely benefits Live Nation-Ticketmaster. Vermont can, and should, have the former without the latter.

Vermont needs to stand up to this corporate bully. If any state knows how to, it’s this one.

The Vermont Lottery offers several draw games for those willing to make a bet to win big.

With all the talk of right wing men having a hard time finding a partner, I really was surprised to discover that Stephen Miller, the inspiration for many of Trump’s cruelest immigration policies, had a wife. But, I then was unsurprised that his wife, Katie Miller, has an anti-feminist podcast. Also no surprise: she has been lamenting that the US fertility rate is falling rapidly. But here is the true shocker: who can we blame for that rotten news?

“Since 2007, the teen birth rate has fallen 72%. Hormonal birth control isn’t just poison for women’s minds and bodies — it’s killing population growth. For the first time ever, birth rates for women in their late 30s have surpassed those in their early 20s.”

And to add to the horror of it all, according to Marc Siegel, a talking head on Faux News masquerading as a senior medical analyst, the following actually qualifies as a social problem, and we should be very worried: ”We’re telling people that are young not to have babies, to wait ‘til they’re in a more stable life situation, ‘til they’re more financially secure, maybe they haven’t found the right partner.”

Yes, the very idea of waiting until you have met someone you can see raising a child with, maybe you even deeply love, have enough financial resources to live independently of your hard working parents or parent, and even a high school diploma, is too much for the MAGA crowd in the face of a worse crime: a declining fertility rate.

I guess I missed something: have not the good Christians of the past been horrified by teen sexual activity? In the very recent past, within even the memory of the youngest voters, did teens who engaged in wanton sexual activity not face punishment? Did I imagine the many demands for “abstinence only” sex “education”?

Maybe the push to accept and welcome children having babies is something else altogether: more “Handmaid’s Tale,” and less allowing the kids to relax about sex.

I have to wonder if part, or even all, of this hand wringing is directly related to the rape culture ushered in by electing a president whose followers thought it was cool that he had bragged about grabbing a woman by the “pussy,” and was convicted of molesting a woman in a department store dressing room. Secretary of War Crimes, Pete Hegseth, is mad full of the teachings of a raving lunatic, Doug Wilson, pastor of possibly the most misogynist sect in a country full of weird allegedly Christian teachings, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.

At the schools associated with this cult, Amanda Marcotte writes: “Students at ACCS schools who said they were sexually abused by teachers reported being blamed for causing the older men to ‘stumble.’”

And of course, the cherry on the pie for the pro-natalist crowd, Planned Parenthood is the devil and always being deprived of funds that could help women and families actually have some agency in choosing when and if to have kids. And abortion is the worst sin! Senator Josh Hawley is currently attempting to make safe abortions illegal by pressuring a corrupt FDA to declare that mifepristone is unsafe for use —with Republican Senate enthusiasm.

So this push for teen pregnancies may actually not be condoning sex between consenting teens as much as acknowledging the number of young girls who are victims of men who are family members, employers, teachers, politicians, and all the men who see Donald Trump and his ilk as role models. The drip, drip, drip of information about the Dear Leader and rape of a 13-year-old girl continues. Trump acolyte Matt Gaetz has been very credibly accused of child trafficking and statutory rape. While he resigned from Congress, he continues to hold his Florida law license.

This is a dangerous moment for girls — we who grew up with the feminist movement understand and lived what we hope we left behind. Rape was taken as a joke until women forced the issue. I do not need to remind anyone of the many challenges of teen pregnancy. I raised three children — as a full grown adult. I can’t even imagine having taken on the day after day parenting struggles as a 17-year-old, much less at age 14. While the trumpers are doing their best to create a dystopian society, we cannot forget what we, and the suffragettes before us, have achieved in the struggle for women’s rights. No ambiguity 3 — our rights are being challenged by men who believe that the worst elements of the past must be the future. Well, we say no!

Nancy Braus is a long-time political activist who writes from Guilford. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media.