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Profits Before People: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Litigation Hall of Shame

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In a previous piece, we wrote about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s very busy litigation practice, the issues the Chamber litigates most frequently, the government agencies it most often opposes, and the giant multinational corporations its litigation most often supports.

In a newly-released report, we examine a few dozen of the most egregious cases the Chamber has litigated. From financial crisis-related litigation to cases stemming from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill to Keystone XL to fracking to the Clean Power Plan to a case involving the Buckyball magnetic toy that injured over 1,700 children, the Chamber has been actively involved in some of the most notorious civil cases of recent years. Some of the lowlights of the Chamber’s litigation include:

  • Litigation related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.The Chamber filed an amicus brief on behalf of BP on 4 separate occasions, arguing for legal technicalities that would eliminate or reduce civil fines and penalties that government agencies sought to impose upon BP as well as obstruct class action litigation brought by small businesses against BP.
  • Litigation related to the Buckyball magnetic toy responsible for injuring thousands of children. The Chamber filed an amicus brief in support of the CEO of the company that sold Buckyballs, a toy that injured over 1,700 young children. It argued that he should not be personally liable for recall costs in spite of the fact that he had had ample warning of the danger posed by the toy and had indeed fought recall efforts, resulting in a delay that led to further sales—and further injuries.
  • Litigation related to for-profit Corinthian Colleges’ fraudulently misleading students. The Chamber filed an amicus brief in support of Corinthian Colleges’ effort to prevent former students from suing it in court for fraud despite the fact that Corinthian was already the subject of multiple investigations targeting similar conduct and had already settled a previous fraud case involving similar allegations.
  • Litigation related to the Keystone XL pipeline. The Chamber sided with the Canadian energy giant behind the pipeline over American ranchers and farmers who didn’t want the pipeline being routed through their land.
  • Fracking Litigation. The Chamber fought to strike down municipal zoning ordinances to prevent fracking.
  • The Clean Power Plan. The Chamber sued the EPA to block President Obama’s signature initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at power plants.
  • Minimum Wage Litigation. The Chamber fought to strike down Seattle’s law raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, claiming that it would be bad for workers.
  • GMO Labeling Litigation. The Chamber filed an amicus brief opposing Vermont’s GMO labeling law, arguing that it did not advance a legitimate state interest and impinged upon corporations’ free speech rights.
  • Alien Tort Statute Litigation. The Chamber filed amicus briefs in cases involving Nigerian and Papua New Guinean plaintiffs who alleged that foreign multinationals had been complicit in gross human rights abuses including rape, pillage, and aerial bombardment of civilians. In both cases, public protests against the industrial sites in question were brutally repressed by the government, allegedly at the behest of and assisted by the corporate defendants.
  • Walmart Gun Sales Litigation. The Chamber filed an amicus brief supporting Walmart’s effort to prevent shareholders from voting on a proxy resolution calling for the company’s board to examine its sale of high capacity firearms.
  • Labor Rights for Gig Economy Workers. The Chamber sued the city of Seattle to block its law allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.
  • Litigation against Goldman Sachs for fraudulently misleading investors. The Chamber filed an amicus brief supporting Goldman Sachs in its efforts to make it more difficult for defrauded investors including pension funds to sue as a result of huge losses they suffered during the financial crisis.

Taken as a whole, the Chamber’s legal filings show it to be attempting to advance an exceptionally dangerous agenda via the courts. This agenda includes:

  • Invalidating important regulations protecting workers, consumers, and the environment, including rules promoting clean air, clean water, greater information, and prudent banking practices. The Chamber’s opposition to regulation is almost blanket, even extending to cases where the rule at issue would correct obvious market failures.
  • Making it harder to hold corporations accountable. The Chamber seeks to make it more difficult for consumers and small businesses harmed by corporate malfeasance to go to court. It also argues for more limited corporate prosecutions and for smaller penalties. Finally, it argues against U.S. jurisdiction in cases where corporations are accused of human rights abuses overseas. The Chamber’s ultimate goal in these cases is the same: corporate accountability should be minimized and/or eliminated.
  • Putting profits before people. The Chamber takes a very robber baron view of business. Whether defending Wall Street speculation or Big Pharma price gouging or appalling fast food labor practices or new economy exploitation of gig economy workers, the Chamber is unconcerned with how dubious business practices harm workers and consumers.
  • Favoring Big Business over small businesses. While the Chamber claims to be the voice of small businesses in Washington, when it comes to its litigation practice, it can be relied upon to favor the giant multinational corporations that fund it. Whether it’s by arguing for reduced access to the courts, opposing stricter supervision of Wall Street banks designed to reduce the risk of future financial crises, fighting for Big Oil against emissions controls, or supporting Big Pharma’s schemes to keep drug prices sky high, the Chamber always comes down on the side of its deep-pocketed Big Business patrons, ignoring the impact on small businesses.

The Chamber’s use of the courts to advance its Big Business-friendly, anti-consumer, anti-worker, anti-environmental agenda is important in considering the future of the Supreme Court. Some of these cases reached the Supreme Court; others may yet reach the Supreme Court. Progressives should demand that any future justice recognize the tremendous importance of regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment and refuse to put profits before people as the Chamber so often argues our courts should do.

The Chamber’s (Never-Ending) War on Workers

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s war on workers was dealt a significant blow when fast food king Andy Puzder’s nomination to be Secretary of Labor collapsed. As we detailed three weeks ago, Puzder and the Chamber were simpatico on many issues of concern to labor. However, it didn’t take the Chamber long to pick itself back up and open the next front in its war on workers. We’re only midway through the week but the Chamber has already both supported Republicans in Congress who are using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to push to undo a commonsense worker protection regulation and released a report outlining pro-worker Obama-era policies at the National Labor Relations Board that it wants reversed.

First, a little background: The CRA allows Congress, by simple majority vote in both chambers, with very little debate and no possibility of a filibuster, to undo recently issued rules so long as the president does not veto the legislation (see Samantha Bee for our favorite explainer yet). Already, the Stream Protection Rule, Social Security Administration Rule, and the Oil and Gas Industry Anti-Corruption Rule have been repealed via the CRA, leaving communities susceptible to water pollution by coal miners, enabling oil tycoons to avoid transparency, and allowing those with severe mental illness to purchase guns . Congress is threatening to hold CRA votes on dozens of other important rules, which may result in Americans losing critical health, safety, and environmental protections.

The Chamber’s main labor attack this week is focused on rolling back an important worker protection rule known as the Volks rule, which clarifies an employer’s ongoing obligation to maintain records occupational injuries or illnesses for five years. The Chamber-backed CRA challenge, H.J. Res. 83, was introduced by Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL) and is expected to be voted on in the House this week. It comes as no surprise that the Chamber donated to Byrne in both 2014 and 2016, and is avidly working to lobby for his resolution and drum up employer support.

Just yesterday, the Chamber sent a “Key Vote Alert” to House members, making note that it “will consider including votes related to it in [its] 2017 How They Voted scorecard.” (With the amount of money the Chamber spends supporting Republican candidates, we’re sure this got members’ attention).

The five year record keeping requirement formalized by the Volks rule is not new. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had been holding employers accountable to this standard for 40 years prior to 2012, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned this decades-long precedent in AKM LLC (Volks) v. Secretary of Labor. This hindered OSHA’s ability to cite employers for recordkeeping violations and in response, OSHA issued the Volks rule on December 19, 2016 to reaffirm its procedures in advance of any other federal courts reviewing OSHA’s recordkeeping regulations.

The Chamber asserts that the Volks rule “will improperly subject millions of American businesses to citations for paperwork violations, while doing nothing to improve worker health and safety.” What it isn’t mentioned, of course, is that by inspecting accurate data from employer records over a period of several years, OSHA is able to effectively enforce its recordkeeping policies, ensuring employers keep accurate records of employee injuries. With accurate data, OSHA can more effectively identify and target the hazards putting workers at the greatest risk.  Likewise, employers can proactively use the records to keep their own worksites safe.

If employers do not keep accurate injury logs, even greater numbers of American workers are likely to suffer preventable fatalities and injuries on the job. The Chamber fails to recognize that this issue is quite literally a life or death matter. Already, about 4,800 people die on the job every year from injuries, (but an estimated 50,000 people die each year from occupational illnesses they contracted from work, like silicosis and chronic beryllium disease), and about 3 million people are injured at work annually. The requirement that employers keep years’ worth of records has allowed OSHA to better enforce the law and ensure companies maintain accurate records of employee injuries.  With accuracy, OSHA can understand where these deaths and injuries are occurring, under what circumstances, and how they can be prevented.

Undoing the Volks rule will set us back more than four decades, undoing much of the tremendous progress that has been made in improving workplace safety.  By supporting this CRA, the Chamber and its GOP allies are once again pushing the interests of big business instead of pushing efforts to improve workplace safety. It’s yet another example of the Chamber and the GOP placing profits before people.

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce: GOP’s Best (and Oldest) Ally in the War on the Safety Net

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This week, the New York Times wrote a less than optimistic piece on the future of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The article named the usual suspects aiming to slash these critical public safeguards– most notably, Mick Mulvaney, Tom Price and members of the House Freedom Caucus. But, the article left out one important player: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been one of the staunchest opponents of these critical programs it dismisses as “the main driver of deficits” and has been working to oppose them for decades.

The trade association’s war on Social Security dates back to the program’s very beginning, when the Chamber was a steadfast opponent of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal agenda, arguing that Roosevelt was attempting to “Sovietize America.” The Chamber lost its battle against the New Deal and Social Security became law.

Not only did America remain a capitalist stronghold even after Social Security became law, Americans secured additional safety net protections like Medicare, guaranteed medical care for the aged or disabled.  Roughly 1 in 5 Americans receive health care coverage through Medicare; in 2015, Medicare provided health insurance coverage to 55.3 million Americans.

Despite the overwhelming success of these programs in reducing poverty and providing health care more affordably than private insurance, the Chamber never misses an opportunity to call for their demise. In 2005, the Chamber supported President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security by joining the business-funded and misleadingly-named Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America’s Social Security (COMPASS). Despite the fact that Bush and the Chamber pushed aggressively for privatization, their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, as the cuts to these vital protections was widely unpopular with the American public, and still is according to polling.

Undeterred, the Chamber continued its crusade against America’s social safety net. In 2013, Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s then top lobbyist, delivered a speech to Chamber board members outlining the “10 truths about America’s entitlement program.” In today’s political parlance, we would call these “10 truths” “alternative facts”.

We’ll spare you the pain of myth busting each of the Chamber’s ten “truths,” because in one way or another, the Chamber’s arguments all stem from the same place. Anyone who’s ever walked through an airport or waiting room while Fox and Friends was airing has heard the same old tired talking points: entitlement programs are large, expensive, and will only continue to become larger and more expensive, and something must be done now. The Chamber never mentions all of the people who benefit from social insurance programs. In 2012, 57 million Americans received almost $800 billion in Social Security benefits. Economists estimate that Social Security benefits in turn generate approximately $1.4 trillion in economic output and more than 9.2 million jobs.

Moreover, when the Chamber repeatedly stated in 2013 that “the cost to make these programs financially solvent for the next 75 years is almost $40 trillion,” it ignores the fact that unless the Chamber has been given a crystal ball that we’re unaware of, it is nearly impossible to know what the fiscal landscape will be in 2088. Nor does the Chamber mention that it would be very easy to put Social Security and Medicare on firm fiscal ground simply by looking at the multitude of policies that could provide more revenue for these programs.

In July of 2016, the Chamber signaled support for the deceptively-named Save Our Social Security (S.O.S.) Act legislation that would raise the full retirement age from age 67 to 69, beginning in 2022. Then in August of 2016, the Chamber addressed an open letter to presidential debate host Lester Holt  suggesting that spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid was out of control and urging him to question the candidates about their plans for these programs.

While the Chamber and the GOP appear to agree on nearly every issue, it seemed to rub the Chamber the wrong way that Donald Trump, the GOP presidential standard-bearer, had promised on 13 separate occasions to not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.

Which brings us to present.

Since the election, President Trump has adopted most of the Chamber’s agenda, and he’s even walked back his promise to protect Medicaid. He hasn’t, however, said a word about Social Security or Medicare. Meanwhile, U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan has made it very clear that he intends to move full steam ahead on destroying Medicare. He will without a doubt have the Chamber as an ally in that fight.

In Tom Donohue’s 2017 State of American Business address, he once again reaffirmed the Chamber’s commitment to playing a leading role in gutting these programs. “It is simple that there can be no solution to the nation’s long-term fiscal imbalances and our exploding national debt that does not involve reforming Social Security, Medicare, and for the state budgets, Medicaid,” he said. In Chamber-speak, “reforming” means “cutting.”

The simple fact is this: The Chamber has a long history of leading the charge to destroy America’s social safety net. And while we have yet to see whether or not Trump will keep his promises to protect Social Security and Medicare, so far the signs are not promising. With Speaker Ryan, the Republican-controlled Congress, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, who referred to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” and Tom Price, as the Health and Human Services Secretary who wants to privatize Medicare all in favor of gutting social insurance programs, 2017 may unfortunately be the Chamber’s likeliest opportunity to win its decades-long battle against Social Security and Medicare.

It’s great to see the impact of the loud and clear pushback lawmakers are getting in townhalls in districts across the country, and that average citizens are making sure their voices are being heard. The upcoming war over protecting Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid  is going to be a another case where American voters are not going to sit back quietly and watch the hard-won, essential protections that keep their families safe and healthy be stripped away so that huge corporations can make millions more in profit.

Now it’s time for the Chamber (and the companies that fund the lobbying behemoth) to get some of this much-deserved flak as well.

Donohue's State of American Business Address

#LetsGrow or #TheRichGetRicher? U.S. Chamber of Commerce Lays Out Agenda for the New Administration

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While the media has been focusing much of its attention over the past few weeks on the inauguration, protests to the aforementioned inauguration, and a slew of alternative facts, Chamber Watch did not fail to tune into U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue’s annual State of American Business address.

Over the past 10 years, with Democrats controlling either Congress, the White House, or both, this annual speech has served as little more than a corporate wish list, with slim to no chance of wishes coming to policy fruition. But this year, with a Republican Congress that the Chamber spent big to elect and a Republican President almost completely devoid of policy ideas, much on Donohue’s wish list has a decent chance of becoming vital to the Trump/Ryan agenda. So if you want to get a handle on where Trump and the new Congress may be intending to steer the country, there’s no better place to start than with Donohue’s speech. However, on the off chance you don’t have the time or desire to listen, we’ve outlined his top priorities below:

1. Cutting Social Security and Medicare.

Despite seeing #LetsGrow emblazoned on the lectern and across our TweetDeck, the Chamber isn’t actually concerned about growth, or at least certainly not when it comes to growing the incomes of working Americans. If the Chamber was concerned with growing Americans’ incomes and the American economy, it would understand that consumer spending represents almost 70% of GDP.  Of course, a lot of those consumers are seniors who receive Social Security benefits. In 2012, 57 million Americans received almost $800 billion in Social Security benefits. Economists estimate that Social Security benefits in turn generate approximately $1.4 trillion in economic output and more than 9.2 million jobs. Would the Chamber forgo this economic output and these jobs? The answer appears to be a thinly veiled yes.

2. Rolling back Regs

Next up on Donohue’s agenda is rolling back regulations. Among his top rollback priorities are the overtime rule that would provide overtime pay to millions of middle income Americans, the clean water rule to protect our streams and rivers, the Clean Power Plan to limit power plant emissions of greenhouse gases, and the open internet rules to preserve net neutrality. He also called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Dodd-Frank Act, and specifically condemned the Volcker Rule to limit speculative trades by banks of the kind that led to the 2008 Financial Crisis.

But Donohue’s anti-regulatory tirade didn’t end there. He also touted the deceptively-named Regulatory Accountability Act that would hamstring future efforts to protect consumers, workers, and the environment by layering on so many additional process requirements that rulemaking to protect the public would grind to a halt. He demanded that regulations limiting fossil fuel production be revoked. He renewed his vow to fight against the fiduciary rule which would protect retirement savers from unscrupulous investment advisors. He criticized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) despite the fact that it has returned $11.4 billion to consumers harmed by the illegal practices of financial services corporations. And lastly, he vowed to defend forced arbitration from regulatory action just as the CFPB and other agencies are beginning to crack down on these abusive rip-off clauses that harm consumers and small businesses.

Amazingly and yet not surprisingly, Donohue justified killing all of these important and beneficial protections by claiming that they are harming small businesses. However, many of the regulations that Donohue mentions don’t even apply to small businesses. This is the case for the overtime rule, the ACA, and many provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. Others, like the clean water rule and the CFPB actually help small businesses. Just like consumers, small businesses are often victimized by the shady lending practices of big financial services corporations, making the Chamber’s desire to gut the CFPB and defend forced arbitration completely inconsistent with their claims to defend small businesses.

3. Cutting the Corporate Income Tax

Donohue complained that the U.S. statutory rate is among the highest in the world, but what he didn’t say is that the effective corporate income tax rate is actually far below the average effective rate for industrialized countries. The Chamber’s agenda has nothing to do with growth or with expanding incomes for working Americans or with defending small businesses from alleged regulatory overreach and everything to do with putting more money in the pockets of big corporations and the extremely rich executives who run them. This trickle down agenda will not produce the GDP growth the Chamber claims. Even the International Monetary Fund has recognized that increasing income inequality is a drag on growth.

Donohue’s address was ostensibly all about increasing economic growth, but left unsaid was the critical question: growth for whom? While Donohue included some throwaway lines about “sound, long term economic growth,” “expand[ing] incomes,” and the importance of small business, the core of his speech focused on three things: cutting Medicare and Social Security, rolling back important laws and regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment, and cutting taxes on big corporations. Donald Trump may have campaigned as a populist, claiming that he would stand up to special interests and fight for the interests of working people, but if Tom Donohue’s State of American Business address is anything to go by, Trump and the Republican Congress will pursue an agenda that puts Big Business and the wealthy first and everyone else last.

Statement of Principles

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce Watch Statement of Principles

The United States Chamber of Commerce is the nation’s largest lobbyist, having spent over $1.2 billion on lobbying activities since 1998.  While the Chamber claims to represent the interests of more than 3 million American businesses including “mom-and-pop shops” and pursue an agenda aimed at helping “revitalize the American economy, create jobs, spur growth, and lift incomes,” the reality could not be more different.

In fact, the Chamber primarily represents the interests of big business.  Indeed, 90% of its claimed members are linked to the Chamber only through their membership in an affiliated state or local chamber of commerce.  And Chamber president Thomas Donohue has admitted that small firms “provide the foot soldiers, and often the political cover, for issues big companies want pursued.”

The Chamber’s agenda, despite its lofty claims to the contrary, has little to do with improving the American economy and everything to do with improving the bottom lines of the Chamber’s multinational donors who supply the lion’s share of financial support to the Chamber.  Repeatedly, the Chamber has lobbied and/or litigated against environmental protections, against action on climate change, against whistle-blower protections, to restrict consumers and workers’ access to the civil justice system, against consumer and worker protection regulations, against efforts to reduce tobacco consumption, against political spending disclosure, against incorporation transparency legislation ,against financial reform, against efforts to restrict multinationals from exploiting tax loopholes, and against a living wage.

We, the undersigned organizations, call on the United States Chamber of Commerce to:

I. Disclose the original sources of the donations it receives as well as the original sources of monies it spends on specific election campaigns or directs toward specific lobbying campaigns.

II. Recognize the danger posed by climate change and the need to promote sustainable businesses.

III. Recognize that paying employees a living wage improves productivity and worker retention in addition to stimulating the American economy.

IV. Recognize that limiting the size and risk profiles of large financial institutions is necessary to safeguard the global economy.

V. Recognize that access to the courts and environmental, consumer, public health, and worker protection laws and regulations are essential to creating and preserving a large and healthy middle class.

VI. Recognize that the tax code should not favor large multinationals over small businesses and every day Americans.

If the Chamber is truly serious about representing the interests of all businesses, revitalizing the American economy, creating jobs, spurring growth, and lifting incomes, then it will endeavor to adopt these principles as part of its agenda.

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Chamber of Commerce Weather Forecast for Capitol Hill: The Deluge Continues

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In our first update on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s elections spending in late March, we issued a Chamber of Commerce weather forecast for Capitol Hill: make it rain. Well three weeks later, its flood of campaign spending has continued unabated.

In a mere three weeks, the Chamber dropped an additional $1.7 million on elections spending, bringing its total so far for the 2016 election cycle to more than $5.4 million. This total has pushed it up one place on the list of largest outside spenders to the number eleven spot. It remains the largest outside spender on congressional races and remains the largest outside spender that does not disclose any information about its donors. That’s right, voters have no way of knowing who is behind the deluge of Chamber-funded ads supporting or opposing House and Senate candidates in the nine states in which it has so far been active.

So where has the Chamber been making it rain since we last checked in? The Chamber has flooded the Indiana airwaves with $1 million on behalf of Republican Senate candidate Todd Young. And the Chamber has continued to drown the Ohio airwaves with another $700,000 in spending against Democratic Senate candidate Ted Strickland, bringing the total amount the Chamber has spent against Strickland to just shy of $1.3 million.

The Chamber’s latest shower of money follows its already established pattern of hyper-partisanship. It has still not spent a single cent opposing a Republican candidate or supporting a Democratic candidate. Now some might be tempted to interject that it’s only logical that the Chamber would support Republican candidates since the Republican Party supposedly represents the best interests of business and the Democratic Party doesn’t. This of course would be wrong.

A recent summary of opinion polling reveals that business leaders actually support many Democratic policy proposals, including raising the minimum wage, paid sick leave, and predictive scheduling for employees. And contrary to what the Chamber would have you believe, replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was not as high on business leaders’ list of priorities as was simply keeping healthcare costs low for families. So if business leaders themselves hold nuanced views about policy and indeed support many progressive policy proposals, why then does the Chamber only spend money to help Republican candidates get elected?

The Chamber’s one-sided, overly partisan election spending suggest that instead of representing all American businesses as it claims, the Chamber actually represents the narrow interests of a few industries. Its unwavering opposition to the ACA does not reflect a business consensus to this effect but rather reflects the priorities of the health insurance industry, which reportedly has given the Chamber more than $86 million to oppose the ACA. Similarly, its opposition to an increase in the minimum wage may reflect the opposition of the fast food and retail industries, both of which employ millions of low wage workers. And of course the Chamber’s opposition to legislative and regulatory efforts to fight climate change may be explained by the influence of the fossil fuel industry.

Lost in the Chamber’s flood of partisan political spending are the more nuanced views of the majority of business executives. Likewise, the Chamber’s hyper-partisan outlook also ignores the priorities of small business, green energy, sustainable business, and a whole host of other sectors.

One often hears that April showers bring May flowers, but unfortunately in this case, the Chamber’s torrent of election spending, should it succeed in getting its preferred candidates elected, will only bring about policies that not only hurt everyday Americans, but also run counter the policy priorities of a majority of business leaders. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for Capitol Hill is unlikely to change before the election; the Chamber will continue to make it rain, in the hope that it will be able to drown out the voices of average Americans, and even many of the business leaders it claims to represent.

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Chamber of Commerce Weather Forecast for Capitol Hill: Make it Rain

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With the presidential campaign dominating the airwaves, social media feeds, and dinner table conversations across America, it’s easy to forget that there’s another equally important election taking place this November: the race for control of Congress.

You can be sure that the United States Chamber of Commerce has not forgotten. On Wednesday, the Chamber’s chief political strategist told the Washington Post “We think early money sets the terms of the debate, and we’re gearing up” in reference to the Chamber’s plans to spend heavily on Senate races. The Chamber has already been showering hundreds of thousands of dollars on several Republican senate candidates. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Pete Toomey (R-PA) have each benefited from over $500,000 in Chamber spending.  And Rob Portman (R-OH) has benefited as the Chamber has spent more than $500,000 against his opponent, Ted Strickland (D-OH).  Joe Heck, Republican candidate for Senate in Nevada has benefited from over $400,000 in Chamber spending while Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) have seen the Chamber spend over $350,000 each to promote their reelection bids.  Previous reports indicate that the Chamber may shell out a total of $100 million on elections spending in 2016.

With the first quarter of 2016 drawing to a close, Public Citizen’s Chamber Watch decided to look and see how much the Chamber had spent on election campaigns so far this year, and how it stacked up compared to other outside spending groups. Thus far, the Chamber has spent almost $3.7 million. That places it in twelfth place on the list of largest outside spenders, made up largely of Super PACs and 504(c)(4) organizations.  These organizations may accept unlimited donations, but are technically not allowed to coordinate with the official campaigns of the candidates they support.  However, the list is dominated by groups supporting or opposing specific presidential candidates, and if you remove these groups focused on the Presidential election, the Chamber rises to first place on the list.

The Chamber also stands out in that it is by far the largest outside spender that does not disclose any of its donors. In other words, the Chamber’s election spending is 100% secret money.  Indeed, of the top 25 outside spenders, only one other group, the Koch brothers-affiliated and Orwellian-named Americans for Prosperity, does not disclose any of its donors.

When we take a look at the money going out the doors in term of the Chamber’s election spending (since we can’t look at what is coming in), it reveals a hyper partisanship, in contrast to claims to the contrary. Thus far this year, the Chamber has spent $2.9 million in support of Republican candidates, more than $500,000 against Democratic candidates, and precisely $0 in favor of Democratic candidates or against Republican candidates.

Such lopsided spending might surprise the millions of businesspeople who don’t see public policy in starkly partisan terms. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who’ve studied the Chamber under its current president, Tom Donohue.  Donohue has turned what was once a non-partisan organization into a fiercely partisan lobbying, litigation, and elections spending behemoth.  While the Chamber might claim to represent the interests of all American businesses and indeed the American economy as a whole, the reality is that the Chamber is essentially a hired gun, lobbying for the interests of its biggest contributors. That’s likely one of the reasons why the Chamber has consistently opposed legislative and regulatory efforts to combat climate change. And that’s probably why the Chamber has fought tooth and nail against the passage and implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, even after the financial crisis exposed the need for the reforms included in it.

The 2016 congressional races are just starting to heat up, and the vast majority of election spending for these races will come in the fall. The flow of undisclosed money through the Chamber is therefore likely to accelerate. While Washington’s heaviest downpours usually take place during summer thunderstorms, this year, as in past election years, the Chamber is likely to let loose torrents of secret money to elect its favorite senators and congresspeople this fall.  The Chamber of Commerce weather forecast for Capitol Hill can be summed up in three words: make it rain.

Undermining the CFPB: Chamber Seeks Light Regulation of Credit Cards by Limiting Powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

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As congressional Republicans threaten to shut down the government over ideological policy provisions including an attempt to eviscerate the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Public Citizen’s U.S. Chamber Watch released a report documenting the business lobby’s efforts and arguments against the new agency’s benefits to consumers.

The analysis is contained in the second of three reports on the Chamber’s broad attack against Wall Street reform. Titled “Undermining the CFPB,” the report highlights the Chamber’s defense of the onerous credit card terms megabanks promote at the expense of consumers. It also looks at the Chamber’s attempt to stifle dialogue between the CFPB and the U.S. Department of Defense as the agencies work to protect members of the military from predatory lending – a goal especially important for vulnerable service members deployed overseas.

 

Read the report here.

Undermining Dodd-Frank: A Critical Review of the 2015 “Fix. Add. Replace. (FAR)” Agenda of the Center for Capital Market Competitiveness at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s sweeping attacks against Wall Street reform are based on policies unsupported by evidence, harmful to small business and consumers, and largely beneficial to Wall Street, according to an analysis by Public Citizen’s U.S. Chamber Watch.

The analysis is contained in the first of three reports on the Chamber’s attempt to undermine policies that benefit Main Street. Titled “Undermining Dodd-Frank,” the report provides an overview of the Chamber’s assault on reforms initiated after the 2008 economic collapse, which was fueled by reckless Wall Street practices.

Public Citizen’s report documents some of the Chamber’s most outrageous positions and shows its tendency to protect the nation’s largest banks. For example, the Chamber criticizes modest safeguards on complicated derivative transactions where 90 percent of the market involves only five large banks. The Chamber also invokes Main Street when attacking consumer safeguards against credit card industry abuses, even though seven banks control 74 percent of this sector.

Read the report (PDF).

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Not Buying It: Countering the Chamber’s Anti-Class Action Accounts

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Lawmakers should not set great store by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s April testimony from attorney John Beisner before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary. In his testimony, Beisner advocated legislation to prevent what he labels “overbroad” or “no-injury” class actions. A new Public Citizen report, “The Fiction of the ‘No-Injury’ Class Action,” counters his argument case by case.

Because class-action lawsuits are often the only feasible way to bring small-dollar claims, class actions are powerful tools for combating corporate wrongdoing and are frequently a target for corporate interests seeking to limit consumers’ access to court remedies.

In one of its many theories about why consumers’ should not be able to hold bad actors accountable, the Chamber’s lobbyists are pushing the idea that consumers who were duped by misrepresentations into buying products or overpaying for products have suffered “no injury.”

Public Citizen’s report has the goods on the real letter of the law: Consumers conned into buying a product that is defective or mislabeled have suffered economic injury. For example, consumers duped into purchasing worthless cold remedies have suffered an obvious injury, but Beisner’s testimony for the Chamber called their lawsuit a “no-injury” class action.

Public Citizen’s report looks past the façade of Beisner’s arguments and reviews each of the class-action lawsuits referenced in his testimony to show that the cases involved real injuries suffered by consumers who bought defective products or made purchases because of misrepresentations. These injuries included the need to repair or replace products to avoid serious injury, as well as economic losses suffered when consumers paid for defective products that were not worth the premium prices charged, purchased worthless products that were not what manufacturers represented them to be, or paid extra for products based on misrepresentations about their nature or quality.

The report also explains that securities law, trademark law, and antitrust law accept that consumers can suffer an economic harm if they purchase a product based on false information or an artificially inflated price. The policy goals that underlie those types of laws likewise apply to consumer misrepresentation suits — protecting purchasers and the integrity of the marketplace.

Let’s make sure Congress doesn’t buy what the Chamber’s trying to sell. The laws and rules that allow consumers to band together in a single suit to seek compensation for harm are essential protections that Congress should strengthen, not weaken.

 

 

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