Conservative champion Mike Lee has made a strange issue alliance in the Senate. What kind of game is he playing?

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, testifies during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the nomination of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman to become the US ambassador to Russia, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017 in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Mike Lee is a strong advocate of small government. His website makes it clear he believes government is far too intrusive in our lives and in the economy:

But a government that tries to do too many things can end up stifling human cooperation instead of enabling it. Big government turns citizens into supplicants, capitalists into cronies, and cooperative communities, into competing special interests.

Further, he’s called out regulators as being out of control, with too much power and too little supervision.

So it’s surprising that he’d be working with Democrat Amy Klobuchar. His letter with her is carefully worded, but it strongly suggests that government management of the economy would do better for the people than a free market would, going as far as to imply that government mandated price controls are appropriate, and that the Obama adminstration’s far-left Open Internet Order was a good idea.

The Lee/Klobuchar letter is a list of mights, maybes, and coulds, casting aspersions, and asking the Trump Justice department to take a close look. If this is Mike Lee’s way of presenting himself as a concerned and positive-thinking conservative, without taking any concrete action that would grow government and harm innovation in industry, then I’m all for it.