美国国家公共电台 NPR--The current Supreme Court could be the most pro-business yet

The current Supreme¹ Court could be the most pro-business yet

Transcript²

The current Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, may be the most business-friendly high court of the past century, according to a new study.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

How business friendly is the current Supreme Court? According to a new study - very. And the reasons why go beyond just who is sitting on the court. Adrian Ma and Wailin Wong from our daily economics podcast The Indicator³ explain.

WAILIN WONG, BYLINE⁴: Mitu Gulati is a law professor at the University of Virginia, and for Mitu's latest research project, he and fellow law professor Lee Epstein wanted to see if they could quantify the court's decisions and detect a trend.

MITU GULATI: We just boiled down the cases to their simplest bottom line - who won?

ADRIAN MA, BYLINE: So what they did was pull data on every Supreme Court case between 1920 and 2020, and they looked specifically at cases involving a business on one side and a nonbusiness on the other. And then they just added up the number of times the business came out on top.

GULATI: Many people find this kind of analysis very irritating. But if we do reduce the cases down to the bottom-line numbers, we see that the court that we have now is by far the most pro-business court in the last hundred years.

MA: So what is going on here? Mitu and his co-author have three theories. The first theory has to do with the kinds of cases the court is actually not seeing much of these days, and that is a business facing off against the U.S. government over some law or regulation. Mitu says justices have historically been 10% more likely to rule against a business if the government is on the other side. But since fewer of those cases are making it to the docket, that sort of helps burnish⁵ the win-loss record for businesses.

WONG: The second factor, Mitu says, is that when you look at the voting records of the justices in recent years, they're more pro-business than judges in previous decades.

MA: So for starters, Mitu says consider the records of the Republican-appointed judges who are serving on the court. According to Mitu's analysis, these justices, they sided with businesses over nonbusinesses 60 to 90% of the time.

WONG: And when you look at the record of Democratic appointees, Mitu says they weren't quite as business friendly as their colleagues, but they still sided with businesses about half the time.

MA: But there's one third and final factor Mitu points to that seems to be tipping the scales in favor of business, and that is high-powered attorneys.

GULATI: There has developed this elite⁶ Supreme Court bar.

WONG: A few decades ago, Mitu says maybe 30% of businesses before the Supreme Court hired a lawyer with prior Supreme Court experience. But in recent years, that figure has been closer to 80%.

MA: So to recap, you've got fewer cases with the government opposing businesses. You've also got justices who are also more pro-business. And you've got more of these super lawyers out there making the case. Mitu says, for him, this is a little worrying because the cases that the court hears, these are not, like, obvious calls. They could kind of go either way, depending on your point of view.

GULATI: What the court does in deciding those close cases is deciding which way legal doctrine⁷ goes.

MA: Mitu says, one decision at a time, cases like these do shape the business landscape. As a result, they also shape the economy, the economy that we all live in.

WONG: Wailin Wong.

MA: Adrian Ma, NPR News.

1 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 burnish   

v.磨光；使光滑

参考例句：

• Many people,fearful for their jobs,are trying to burnish their contacts at other firms.许多人因为担心自己的工作，正在努力抹去和其他公司接触的痕迹。
• I burnish joyful sparks from my sorrows.我从伤痛里擦亮喜悦的火花。

6 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

7 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。