WisPolitics Budget Blog

US Chamber Recruited

Mission complete. While barely breaking a sweat, Karl Rove mobilized the social conservatives with one call to Dr. James Dobson, then, mobilized the tort reformers with one call to the U.S. Chamber.

Circling the wagons with such a public show of political muscle will make it difficult on those Republican Senators who might have bolted to the maverick side of our Party.

As long as Harriet Miers doesn't volunteer something crazy like, favoring the Dred Scott or Plessey decisions, she's got her lifetime appointment.

That's big for the business community," says Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist for the US Chamber of Commerce. He predicts that other business groups, many for the first time in their histories, will take a higher profile role in court fights.

"Business is getting involved for the first time because, in the last decade, we've had a litigation explosion in this country that is unmatched in the industrial world - $250 billion in annual tort costs, much of it paid by the business
community," he adds.

The president's nomination of Harriet Miers is a good pick for the US Supreme Court," said Chamber President and CEO Thomas Donohue

"In looking at his tenure on the court, he repeatedly demonstrated a real sensitivity and understanding of the problems that business faces when it is involved in litigation," says Stephen Bokat, executive vice president of the National Chamber Litigation Center.