Big business knows who its friends are

Our First Monday video, Unequal Justice is subtitled, The Relentless Rise of the 1% Court. In case even more evidence is needed to show that the current Supreme Court majority is very, very friendly to corporate special interests, consider some data compiled by Adam Chandler for SCOTUSblog. The topic: the organizations most interested in having the Supreme Court hear a case in the first place.

Before the Supreme Court can decide a case it has to decide whether to hear it at all. The side that wants the case heard submits a brief requesting a writ of certiorari - that is, a decision to hear the case. The other side submits a brief urging the Court to turn the case down. Nearly 99 percent of the time, the Court says no.

Just as when cases are argued on the merits, groups who feel they have an interest in the outcome may submit amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs.

As you would expect, the groups most active in filing such briefs asking the Supreme Court to hear cases are the groups with the most confidence their side will win. And who are those groups? They include the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and, in first place, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

This is the second time Chandler has run these numbers. He sees a trend:

Overall, the ideological cast of the new entrants [among the top filers] is more conservative, anti-regulatory, and pro-business than that of those they replaced. To varying degrees, all seven of the new entrants have conservative profiles, whereas several of those left off the list this year, like the Society of Professional Journalists and the National League of Cities, have no obvious ideological bent. Five years ago, I wrote that “the list of top amici is dominated by pro-business and anti-regulatory groups—such groups hold over half the slots in the top sixteen.” Now they hold over three-quarters.

Big business is glad to be “friends of the court.” And the Supreme Court majority is glad to return the favor.

Click on the link to the right, under "First Monday Films" to see AFJ’s video, Unequal Justice: The Relentless Rise of the 1% Court.

President Obama’s other audience

Will the Supreme Court help America complete its journey

 – or throw obstacles in the way?

When President Obama gave his second inaugural address Monday, it’s estimated that one million people gathered on the National Mall to hear him.  Tens of millions more heard the speech on television, radio or online.

But there also was a much more select audience – an audience of nine, seated just a few feet from the president.  Because several issues the president raised will be profoundly affected by actions of the United States Supreme Court, in some cases, within the next few months.

The president said:

Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well.

And, in marking civil rights landmarks, the President pointedly included “Stonewall” along with Seneca Falls and Selma.

The Supreme Court can speed the journey, by voting to strike down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, and upholding the ruling by the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals that California’s Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.  Or the court can make it a much longer, more tortuous journey by upholding discrimination.

The president said:

We the people declare today that the most evident of truth that all of us are created equal -- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

And he said:

Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.

The famous march from Selma to Montgomery was a march for the right to vote – a right won with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  But now, a challenge to a key provision of that law could significantly setback the progress won by Dr. King and those who marched with him.

The president said:

Together we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.

But over and over again, the Supreme Court majority has bent those rules to favor corporate special interests at the expense of the rest of us, something documented in detail in our First Monday documentary, Unequal Justice.

This term, the Court may bend the rules again, when it returns to the issue of forced arbitration in the case of American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant.

And, of course, the president alluded to the tragedy of gun violence:

Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.

The Supreme Court already has made that part of the journey more difficult.  The right-wing activist majority radically reinterpreted the Second Amendment, discovering an individual right to bear arms where none existed before.

Chief Justice John Roberts administers the Oath of Office

--White House photo

But even Justice Antonin Scalia did not close the door to all regulation of guns.  And whatever Congress may do in response to the Newtown tragedy, the Supreme Court may well have the final word.

That’s why something President Obama did not mention is at least as important as all of the subjects he raised in an excellent inaugural address: the need for a progressive judiciary – on our federal district courts, on our circuit courts of appeals and on the United States Supreme Court.

Guest blog: The human consequences of judicial decisions

By James B. Steele

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist James B. Steele, co-author with Donald Barlett of The Betrayal of the American Dream, had been scheduled to offer some context for the economic issues discussed in AFJ’s documentary Unequal Justice, at its Washington D.C. premiere.  Unfortunately, when we had to reschedule the premiere to tonight because of Hurricane Sandy, Steele was unable to join us.  But he believes the issues discussed in the documentary are so important that he sent us this guest blog.  There’s still time for you to register to attend the free screening tonight.  And Steele’s essay, below, serves as a great introduction for tonight’s program.

The inequality that has transformed the United States into a place eerily resembling the nation during the robber baron era didn’t just happen.

It’s the result of deliberate policies in taxes, trade and deregulation that have enabled the top one percent of Americans to take control of more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.

James B. Steele, right, with co-author Donald Barlett

The role of Congress, corporate America and various Administrations in implementing policies that have tilted the economic playing field against the best interests of average Americans is well established. What is not so well known is how the courts have contributed to this economic imbalance. Unequal Justice brilliantly shines a light on this neglected area and exposes the human consequences that judicial decisions have on the lives of millions of Americans.

In the research for our book The Betrayal of the American Dream,  we came across example after example of how the courts have stacked the deck against Americans. One of the most heart-rending cases was story of Joy Whitehouse, to whom we dedicated the book.

Joy and her late husband raised four children and gave them a solid upbringing on his salary as a long-haul truck driver. After he was killed in a highway crash caused in part by faulty maintenance of his truck, Joy expected to receive $598 every two weeks from the company in retirement. But the company reneged on the payment when it entered bankruptcy court and asked a judge to dismiss Joy’s claim. Ultimately the court awarded a few cents on the dollar to some creditors; Joy received nothing. Hobbled by ill health and unable to work, Joy was on her own.

On a visit to her modest mobile home outside Salt Lake City, she led me to a small shed in her backyard. Inside was a jumble of discarded aluminum cans. She had collected used soda, soup and vegetable cans alongside the roads in her neighborhood and from neighbors. Twice a month a friend drove her to a recycler who gave her around $30 each time.  When your only monthly income is $942 from Social Security, she said, the extra $60 comes in handy.

Remarkably, she wasn’t bitter. She didn’t decry her fate.  She just wanted what her husband had earned and which she as mother of their children was owed. After she was denied that, she did what so many hard-working Americans do: she tried to make the best of a situation that was not of her own making.

“You put your pride in your pocket and you learn to help yourself,” she told me. “I save cans.”

Joy was one of a kind, but we saw in her story what was happening to so many middle class Americans who’ve seen their economic security taken from them by Wall Street, Washington and the courts.  The United States, the ostensible land of opportunity, has turned its back on it's own people. Restoring balance in our economic system is crucial, so all may share in the hope, promise and prosperity of this nation.

While we’re giving thanks tomorrow …

...let’s take a moment to think about the workers at Walmart who will be out on a picket line on Friday  - or forced to work on Thanksgiving night – while we enjoy our time with friends and family.  AFJ’s Bolder Advocacy Blog has been spotlighting the campaign for justice at Walmart.  Check out these two recent posts.  This one offers and overview of the campaign, and how all of us can help:

Black Friday Protests at Walmart

This Friday, the nation’s biggest shopping day, thousands of Americans will be calling on Walmart to improve working conditions at its stores and warehouses. The Black Friday day of action is the culmination of a wave of worker activism that started in October with an historic walkout in Los Angeles.

As the recent recession accelerated the growth of the part-time economy, the opposition to Walmart’s practices takes on renewed relevance. Walmart sets an industry standard by creating part-time positions with low wages, unaffordable benefits, erratic scheduling, and unsafe workplaces.

Read the full post here

And there’s more about the campaign in this guest blog from Erica Smiley, Campaigns Director for Jobs with Justice and American Rights at Work

Walmart Can Change Its Ways — if We Make Them

Good jobs are the cornerstone of a strong, healthy economy.  A good job is one where workers have collective bargaining rights, employment security, and wages and benefits that allow their families to enjoy a decent standard of living.  Thus, organizing to transform the economy means organizing to transform work into permanent, secure jobs where workers have dignity and respect.

Read the full post here

The many complaints against Walmart include widespread discrimination against women.  The current protests are needed in part because the Supreme Court failed the women of Walmart when they ruled against them in a class-action suit.  The Walmart case is among those featured in AFJ’s documentary Unequal Justice: The Relentless Rise of the 1% Court.

On Tuesday, Sarita Gupta, executive director of Jobs with Justice and American Rights at Work will discuss the Walmart campaign at the formal premiere of Unequal Justice in Washington.  She’ll be part of a panel that also includes AFJ President Nan Aron, Pam Gilbert, former executive director of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Linda Lipsen, CEO of the American Association for Justice.  The event is free, and there’s still time to register here.

AFJ releases “Unequal Justice: The Relentless Rise of the 1% Court"

In a series of 5 to 4 rulings, a majority on the United States Supreme Court effectively has rewritten the law to favor big business at the expense of the American people, according to a new documentary.  Unequal Justice: The Relentless Rise of the 1% Court, produced by Alliance for Justice (AFJ), was released online Monday.

“Today, as the Supreme Court begins a new term, the court will be ‘open for business,” said AFJ President Nan Aron.  “The term is already packed with cases with the potential to restrict corporate accountability and limit everyday Americans’ civil rights and access to justice  The Court’s decisions this term could have harmful consequences for the ability of consumers, victims of discrimination, and others to get a fair day in court. 

“But no one should be surprised,” Aron said.  “What we are likely to see in the term that begins today was decades in the making.”

Unequal Justice chronicles a 40-year campaign by corporate special interests to put the thumb of big business on the scales of justice.  The campaign has its origins in a profoundly-influential memo written in 1971 by corporate lawyer Lewis Powell, just months before he himself was named to the court by President Richard Nixon.  The memo urged the business community to fight what was then a burgeoning consumer and environmental movement.

“There has been much attention in recent months to the way the executive and the legislative branches stacked   the deck in favor of ‘the one percent’ and against the rest of us,” Aron said.  “But there’s been far too little attention paid to the success of big business in influencing the Supreme Court.  With a presidential election just weeks away, it’s time to pay attention to the decisions a president makes that often have the most lasting consequences – his nominees who will be appointed to the nation’s highest court.”

Said Aron: “We produced this video because we want to highlight the importance of the Supreme Court in the lives of everyday Americans and to spur a renewed sense of activism to hold the Court accountable for its actions.”
 

To learn more about the issues discussed in Unequal Justice and to find out about hosting  a screening, go to www.unequaljustice.org  And read AFJ President Nan Aron’s call to action in The Nation.

Could this Supreme Court term be The One Percent Court on steroids?

The United States Supreme Court term that starts Monday is packed with cases with the potential to restrict corporate accountability and limit everyday Americans’ civil rights and access to justice.  According to a report released today by the Alliance for Justice “the majority on the court is likely to live down to its full potential,” says AFJ President Nan Aron.

“With polling showing the public increasingly fearful that corporations are receiving favorable treatment, the Court risks drifting further from the American mainstream and jeopardizing the legitimacy of its decisions,” Aron said.

The report, available here, comes on the same day AFJ previews its documentary Unequal Justice: The Relentless Rise of the 1% Court, at American University’s Washington College of Law.  The screening, at noon today, will be followed by a panel discussion.

“The documentary describes a 40-year campaign by big business to put its thumb on the scales of justice,” Aron said.  “AFJ’s Supreme Court Preview documents how the campaign may reach its zenith in the term that starts Monday.

"Decisions this term could harm the ability of consumers, victims of discrimination, victims of human rights abuses and many others to stand up for their rights in court,” Aron said.  “This could be The One Percent Court on steroids.”

● AFJ’s Supreme Court Preview.

● Information about AFJ’s First Monday Film: Unequal Justice:The Relentless Rise of the 1% Court.

● Information about today’s screening and panel discussion.

● AFJ Supreme Court poll results.

AFJ President Nan Aron on The 1 Percent Court - and what we can do about it

We all know how big business has eroded the American dream by getting Congress and the executive branch to change the rules to favor corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.  But it hasn’t stopped with two branches of government.  Corporate special interests have spent decades working to put their thumb on the scales of justice.  The campaign finance decision in Citizens United is only the most prominent example.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  In a special issue of The Nation, produced in cooperation with the Alliance for Justice, AFJ President Nan Aron writes about what big business has done to the cherished American value of equal justice under law and, most important, what we can do about it:

"Liberals who came of age in the 1960s and ’70s perceived the Supreme Court largely as a constructive force, devoted to protecting civil, environmental and consumer rights and liberties, and interpreting the Constitution as a living document relevant to a rapidly changing twentieth-century world. It was a Court worthy of respect, if not reverence.

That was then. The 1 Percent Court is now in session."

Nan's full article is available here.

More from this special issue of The Nation is available here.

Media coverage for "The 1 Percent Court"

AFJ’s forthcoming video about corporate influence on the U.S. Supreme Court already is getting intensive media attention. 

AFJ worked with The Nation on a special issue devoted to “The 1 Percent Court” – available online starting Sept. 19 and on newsstands starting Sept. 20.  The issue includes an article by AFJ President Nan Aron outlining specific action steps  the legal community and the public at large can take to pry the thumb of big business off the scales of justice.  This weekend, Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel previews the issue on the public television series Moyers & Company.  Check their website for the date and time in your area.

Wal-Mart: too big to sue?

Chris tells her story in Unequal Justice

When Chris Kwapnoski worked at Sam’s Club, a Wal-Mart affiliate, managers told her that she needed to “doll up” and “blow the cobwebs off” her makeup if she wanted to get ahead. At the same time, a male associate was given a larger raise because he had “a family to support,” even though at the time Chris was a single mother raising two young children.

And when Chris and more than a million other women joined together to hold Wal-Mart accountable for the discriminatory pay and promotion practices of its management, the Supreme Court told them that Wal-Mart was too big to sue.

In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, a narrow majority of the Court ruled that the 1.5 million women who faced systemic discrimination as Wal-Mart workers did not have enough in common to qualify for a class action, ignoring the volumes of anecdotal and statistical evidence to the contrary. And because of the Wal-Mart decision, it is now harder for employees and consumers to band together to fight corporate misbehavior. The Court significantly raised the bar for forming a class, which is one of the only effective ways to fight against widespread injustices committed by large, deep-pocketed corporate interests.

Chris’s story is featured in AFJ’s latest documentary film, Unequal Justice: The Relentless Rise of the 1% Court, which will be released this fall. The short documentary explores the growing pro-corporate bias in key Court decisions, like Wal-Mart v. Dukes, and their real-world impact on ordinary Americans. Click here to learn more about the film and sign up to host a screening.

Immunity for generic drug manufacturers

Gabriel tells his story

When Gabriel Drapos was a first-year student at Harvard, he was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that would ultimately take countless drug therapies, several invasive spinal column procedures, and three surgeries to manage.

He later found out that his disease was likely connected to a drug he had taken:

Personal pain becomes a social injustice in the presence of unconscionable ethics. I discovered there was likely a connection between my disease and a drug I had taken in high school. Allegedly, I should say. I’ll never get my day in court to prove it.

Gabriel had taken a generic form of the drug. And because of a recent Supreme Court decision protecting generic drug manufacturers from being sued in court when their labels don't warn consumers of health risks, he'll never get a chance to stand up for his rights in court and hold the drug company responsible.

Gabriel's story is featured in AFJ's latest documentary film,"Unequal Justice: the Relentless Rise of the 1% Court."

“Unequal Justice” explores the growing pro-corporate bias in key Court decisions and their real-world impact on ordinary Americans. The film looks at three cases – Citizens United v. FEC, PLIVA v. Mensing, and Wal-Mart v. Dukes – to show how the law has been distorted to create advantages for corporations within our democratic system, restrict access to the courts, and prevent ordinary people from banding together to fight corporate misbehavior.

For Gabriel, it was PLIVA v. Mensing that ensured he wouldn’t be able to stand up for his rights in court. In PLIVA, the Supreme Court shielded generic drug manufacturers from state tort liability when their labels inadequately warn consumers of health risks. Absurdly, brand name drug manufacturers can be held liable for that very failure. But generic drugs make up 75 percent of the prescription drug market, and millions of Americans take the generic versions of prescription drugs, often because insurance companies require that prescriptions be filled with generics.

Without the risk of legal liability, generic drug manufacturers have little incentive to ensure that their warning labels are accurate. And when people like Gabriel are harmed by a generic drug, they have no legal remedy.

“Unequal Justice” will be released this fall. You can learn more and sign up to host a screening of the film at www.unequaljustice.org.