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Business, The Roberts Court, And The Solicitor General: Why The Supreme Court's Recent Business Decisions May Not Reveal Very Much, Sri Srinivasan, Bradley W. Joondeph

Faculty Publications

This essay presents an empirical examination of the full universe of the Roberts Court’s decisions affecting the interests of business from January 2006, when Justice Alito joined the Court, to January 2009. As a purely descriptive matter, we find that the Court tended to reach results favorable to business interests, and that it tended to adopt the positions urged by the Bush administration. Moreover, when those two positions diverged-most saliently, in cases where the United States and the United States Chamber of Commerce filed opposing amicus briefs-the Roberts Court overwhelmingly sided with the government.

While these findings are interesting, our …