The Louisiana General Assembly is about to hear the same pitch from the US Chamber of Commerce that the Alabama General Assembly just listened to about the lawsuit lending bill they are sponsoring and lobbying hard for. The US Chamber of Commerce's lawsuit lending bill introduces a rate structure that guarantees the lawsuit lending (aka legal funding) industry will not be able to operate any longer in Louisiana, and eliminates a lower cost solution to other consumer financial products.
A look at history shows that the US Chamber of Commerce has taken the wrong side on all of these following issues during its over 100 year history of looking out only for the special interests of big business:
The US Chamber of Commerce opposed FDR's New Deal
The US Chamber of Commerce opposed FDR's opposition to Hitler
The US Chamber of Commerce encouraged Joe McCarthy's efforts in the 1950s to root out communists
The US Chamber of Commerce opposed the concept of Medicare in the 1960s
The US Chamber of Commerce opposed the civil rights act
The US Chamber of Commerce opposed the Americans with Disabilities Act
The US Chamber of Commerce has opposed the burdensome nature of safety rules on nuclear power plants
The US Chamber of Commerce currently advocates for watering down anti-corruption laws meants to curtail bribing of foreign officials
The US Chamber of Commerce has opposed pollution controls and efforts to cut carbon emissions (populations can just acclimatize, they say)
The US Chamber of Commerce has even supported the need to discriminate against pregnant women
The consistency is that the US Chamber of Commerce always takes the position of VERY BIG BUSINESSES (the ones with the big checkbooks and the need for a front group) over the public, the consumer, the environment, civil rights and common sense.
So now the US Chamber of Commerce is telling a whole host of General Assemblies that lawsuit lending should be banned, and the US Chamber claims that it is doing it out of its concern for the consumer. Maybe the Louisiana General Assembly will realize what the Alabama General Assembly recently did when the US Chamber of Commerce surrogate, the Business Council of Alabama, pushed its sponsored bill on Alabama Senators. Several Alabama Senators asked how the US Chamber of Commerce could advocate for protecting consumers when the US Chamber of Commerce's clients, Big Insurance Companies (e.g., State Farm and Allstate) on its Board of Directors, are in adverse litigation (and defendants) with the consumers making use of legal funding. Perhaps the clients of the US Chamber of Commerce are more concerned that consumers can use legal funding to become less vulnerable to early low settlement offers when they are forced to litigate with these big insurance companies?
In the debate last week on the floor of the Alabama General Assembly, one Alabama Senator summed up the unusual US Chamber of Commerce stance well:
"The consumers as defined in the bill do not have a lobbyist. They don't have any idea that this issue is even up on the floor of the Senate right now - but that's what the bill purports to do - to protect these consumers. Well the proponents of this bill are businesses and insurance companies, and for businesses and insurance companies to propose legislations purporting to protect an individual person who has an immediate and direct adverse position to these proponents of the bill - I don't think that we could convince these consumers or individual people who have claims pending that these defendants - is who they would be - these defendants are purporting to be proposing legislation to support and protect the consumer...My concern is that there is no one speaking out and no one asking questions in support of the interests of these consumers. These consumers, understand, that they have not asked for this protection. But what this protection may potentially do is remove an option that they now have."
For more on the US Chamber's past, go to:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/...
and
https://www.commondreams.org/...