Chamber Of Commerce’s Top SCOTUS Litigator Admits Justices Give Special Treatment to Chamber

By Ian Millhiser

A new study co-authored by conservative Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner confirms something that has been obvious to Supreme Court watchers for years — the Roberts Court places a huge thumb on the scale in favor of corporate interests. According to the study, the Roberts Court rules in favor of business interests 61 percent of the time, a 15 point spike from the five years before when Chief Justice Roberts joined the Court.

While the Chamber of Commerce has recently tried to downplay the favorable treatment it receives from the Supreme Court, its own top lawyer admitted a few years after Roberts joined the Court that the justices give his client special treatment:

Carter G. Phillips, who often represents the chamber and has argued more Supreme Court cases than any active lawyer in private practice,reflected on its influence. “I know from personal experience that the chamber’s support carries significant weight with the justices,” he wrote. “Except for the solicitor general representing the United States, no single entity has more influence on what cases the Supreme Court decides and how it decides them than the National Chamber Litigation Center.”

Phillips’ confession, and the Posner study’s conclusion, corroborates other data showing the Roberts Court’s favoritism towards corporate interests. A recent study by the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center determined that every single justice is more likely to side with the Chamber than the justice who held their seat 25 years ago (the study did not include the Court’s two newest members because of aninsufficiently large data sample):

Welcome to John Roberts’ America, where the wealthy and the well-connected receive the best justice money can buy.