Redstate

In this country today, I don't think that the concerns of "big business" means diddly squat to me.

I work for a "big business".  And their greatest desire is to figure out how to find a really well educated illegal immigrant so they can replace me for half the wage.

They can't.  But you bet your eyeteeth they would if they could.

Everyone talks about a new Teddy Roosevelt.  Show me a real one, and I'm down with him.  Just don't say McCain or Guilani, because I know better than that, in either case.

They'll are behind whomever is in power. The President needs to keep an eye on those of us out there knocking on doors last Fall. It certainly wasn't a bunch of Country Club Republicans.

While I can't name anyone besides the two candidates you just mentioned that would fit the nat'l popularity req of a TR (though perhaps Condi Rice could end up filling the role), an equally interesting question would be just what a contemporary TR would do.

TR saw that the economic problems of the day stemmed from the perversion of the free-market process through monopolization --- and used the government not to usurp the market, but to make the market freer by busting the trusts.

Would a modern-day TR also address economic problems?  Would he or she find ways to make things work more in tune with market principles and once again oversee an enormous economic expansion that would dwarf the '90s?  Perhaps this would involve privatizing things like Social Security.  Or would this figure focus more on other types of issues?

First, make government programs more market friendly.  Personal retirement accounts, health savings accounts, school vouchers, etc.

Second, more information.  One of the biggest market failures is that businesses often know more about consumers than vice versa and capitalism presumes a full flow of information.  Labelling on food is an example, but other ways of getting information out would be a pro-government pro-market reform.  I'm not sure if it is something I would support, but it is a TR-style reform.

I hadn't thought of that second one.  But yes, it is the type of thing that 'ol Teddy would run with.

in "Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce" [494 U.S. 652, (1990)].  Note it's pro-corporate tone:

"'Attention all citizens.  To assure the fairness of elections by preventing disproportionate expression of the views of any single powerful group, your Government has decided that the following associations of persons shall be prohibited from speaking or writing in support of any candidate: __, ___, ____,...'"

Scalia goes on to argue that corporations have just as much of a right to freedom of speech as individuals do.

I don't have his dissenting opinion in the McConnell v. FEC case (regarding the constitutionality of McCain/Feingold) but I can imagine that he makes a similar argument.

Sorry, big corporations.  You can't have a Supreme Court that supports your positions 100% of the time.  Sometimes, even big corporations have to lose.

One area of creeping monopolization is telecom. The Supreme Court just upheld an FCC ruling that cable companies don't need to share lines with ISPs. Now the phone companies are going to go back and do the same.

Part of the reason the US internet market took off so strongly was that ISPs were allowed to sell service over the phone lines, and there was a screamingly competitive market.

US policy has reversed 180 degrees, and now the policy is to give the phone/cable duopoly whatever they want, based on no-obligation promises to build more broadband.

A TR would make sure we had a competitive market for broadband access and services.

that the business interests would prefer Gonzales to Luttig?

Wow.

Gonzales did some really good work as a TX Justice to bring some sanity to the TX liability system. He would be wholeheartedly supported by business.

WWTRD....Not a bad idea for a book, or a pamphlet, at least.

Now, I'm a Taft Republican and so have no burning desire to recreate the trust-busting days of  Theodore Roosevelt per se.

For one thing, the dynamic of government has changed since then. In the early 20th century, the federal government allowed monopolies, trusts and other forms of economic concentration through inaction, inattention and corruption.

Today, through the tax codes (state and federal), appropriation earmarks, direct subsidies and bureaucratic favoritism, governments actively prop up capitalist inefficiencies in the name of economic development.

The reason that the Kelo decision was even possible was that statist economic development projects go generally unchallenged. The city's "economic development plan" was viewed as normal, acceptable, par for the course, when in fact it was an unconstitutional expansion of state and local powers.

Let's see a new Theodore Roosevelt attack corporate welfare.

I'm an economic conservative (pro-free-enterprise and budget discipline) and social liberal / libertarian. Unfortunately, pro-business in both parties has turned into giveaways for the corporations that lobby most effectively.  In practice, pro-business doesn't mean protect contracts and let the competitors compete. It means handing tax dollars and breaks to the politically connnected.  I've done some state-level volunteer lobbying and have seen very clearly how industry "gimme" requests drive legislation.

Not good.  Anyway, business groups have many, many diverse interests before the Court.  Nobody will please them all.  (I practice securities law, and I believe all the Court's decisions in this area since 1997 have been unanimous, so one Justice will make little difference).  Scalia is also "bad" from the business perspective because he doesn't accept constitutional limits on punitive damages.

As to Mead, Bush should tell them if they want to keep regulatory agencies in line, just keep supporting Republicans for elective office.

I do think McConnell, in particular, has a good record on commercial issues.  But really, anybody who takes a Scalia-like rules-based approach to judging is someone the business community should be able to live with.