Senators Cruz, Hawley, Lee craft measure to end MLB antitrust exemption, after Georgia pullout

Three of the Senate's most conservative GOP members are draft legislation to end antitrust exemptions for Major League Baseball, after the group pulled this summer's all-star game out of Georgia in response to the state's new voting laws.

"This past month, we have seen the rise of the woke corporation. We have seen the rise of big business enforcing a woke standard," said Texas' Ted Cruz, who's joining fellow Sens. Mike Lee, of Utah, and Josh Hawley, of Missouri, in the effort, according to NBC News. 

"That decision was harmful. It's going to hurt baseball. But it also underscores that there's no reason Major League Baseball should enjoy special subsidies – corporate welfare that no one else gets," Cruz also said. 

Anti-trust laws are essentially federal and state laws that regulate corporations and are intended to promote competition.

The MLB has been exempt from them since a 1922 Supreme Court case, according to NBC Sports.

The Georgia law, drafted, passed, then enacted earlier this month by Georgia Republican lawmakers attempt to secure the state's voting system, through such measures as ID requirements for absentee balloting. Critics say it restricts voting, especially for minorities.

Lisa Pike Masteralexis, who teaches sports law at University of Massachusetts Amherst, is skeptical about whether the effort would result in change.

"Congress people come out (from time to time) and say, 'We're going to take the exemption away' and through whatever their lobby is, it just never seems to happen," she told NBC News.