Think Progress
catches this
nugget from POLITCO's Influence brief:
More than two dozen companies, trade associations and lobby shops are reporting paying out more than $1 million on lobbying over the past three months. So far, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform is topping that list, reporting shelling out nearly $4.2 million in July through August of this year. Registered lobbyists have until midnight tonight to file. Other top spenders thus far include defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. ($4.2 M), the United Services Automobile Association ($2.8 M), the aerospace company United Technologies Corp. ($2.7 M) and Prudential Financial ($2.6 M).
That's pretty damned impressive, if you're impressed by massive efforts at tort "reform" intended to increase corporate America's immunity from the law. They must be hedging their bets, because as Think Progress notes, "They already own an entire branch of the federal government."
Often at the Chamber’s urging, the Supreme Court has empowered corporations to force consumers and workers into a privatized, corporate-owned arbitration system that overwhelmingly favors corporate parties. They have given corporations a magic key that will immunize them from class action lawsuits brought by their consumers. And they’ve given drug companies and other major corporations sweeping immunity from state law.
Maybe the Chamber is concerned that, after all the blowback the Court received after Citizens United, they'll go soft on them. But probably they are just awash in money to throw around and want to keep Congress firmly in their pocket, making sure they all remember exactly who's buttering their bread.