Julia Rock is a reporter for the Lever.
Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas has abandoned his own stated principles and changed his position on one of America’s most significant regulatory doctrines. Why? A dark money network of conservative billionaires is making his family rich.
A Supreme Court case brought by six Republican attorneys general to kill Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation plan is neglecting key evidence. The dark money–backed court appears willing to disregard its judicial principles and strike the measure down anyway.
Chief Justice John Roberts has repeatedly declined to use his position to impose a code of ethics on the highest court. Now, he’s punting investigation of Clarence Thomas’s corruption scandal to a panel of lower court judges whose identities are secret.
While billionaire real estate mogul Harlan Crow was lavishing Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas with luxury gifts, Thomas voted to strike down federal tenant protections that might hurt the profits of Crow’s company.
After its hosts repeatedly lied about voting machine company Dominion rigging the 2020 elections, Fox News agreed to pay $787 million to Dominion to settle a defamation lawsuit. Fox can deduct over $200 million in taxes because of the settlement payment.
While receiving lavish gifts from billionaire Harlan Crow and then failing to disclose them, Clarence Thomas pushed to invalidate all disclosure laws, insisting that donors have a right to anonymously influence politics with unlimited amounts of cash.
Governor Kathy Hochul is pushing to gut New York’s signature climate law to effectively allow more methane emissions. She is doing so after receiving nearly half a million dollars in donations from energy corporations and lobbyists advocating for the move.
The corporate lobbying group fighting a minimum wage raise in New York argues it will throw more than 100,000 people out of work. But independent studies show an increase wouldn’t substantially impact employment.
Five years before customers fled Silicon Valley Bank en masse, federal regulators acknowledged that the nature of the bank’s deposits made it especially susceptible to such bank runs — but did nothing to reduce the risk.
In 2021, the Fed approved a merger application from Silicon Valley Bank with Boston Private Bank and Trust, believing that the newly enlarged institution presented no danger to the financial system. After SVB’s collapse, the Fed is changing its tune.
In the months before Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, the bank’s lobbying groups fought a proposal requiring financial institutions to increase payments into the Deposit Insurance Fund that protects depositors from bank failures.
The news of Silicon Valley Bank’s recent collapse is dominating headlines. Just eight years ago, SVB’s president pushed legislators to exempt more midsize banks — including SVB — from regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
In February, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a rule that would limit most credit card late fees to $8. The rule is being fought by a group of House Republicans who took more than $600,000 from credit card companies in the last election cycle.
Sen. John Thune, a former railroad lobbyist, is positioning himself to help kill rail safety legislation meant to prevent disasters like the recent East Palestine derailment. It’s one of many examples of the rail industry’s “revolving door” in Washington, DC.
In the wake of the East Palestine derailment, New York governor Kathy Hochul is calling for stricter federal regulations on hazmat trains. But last December, Hochul vetoed a proposed state law to improve rail safety by requiring minimum two-person train crews.
Following a career in the Senate championing private equity, Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey has left office to join the board of a private equity giant in yet another instance of the cozy relationship between Washington and the finance industry.
The Department of Justice is backing railroad giant Norfolk Southern’s attempt to limit where workers and consumers can bring cases against corporations, making it easier for the firm to block future lawsuits.
In the wake of a disastrous rail accident in Ohio, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg says he doesn’t have the power to compel the rail industry to upgrade its safety equipment and procedures. But he does.
The recent train derailment in Ohio shows the need for more stringent safety rules for train brakes, especially for trains carrying hazardous materials. Transportation regulators are instead bending to the interests of rail industry lobbyists.
For years, rail companies have resisted federal safety regulations to cut costs. The major train derailment in Ohio last weekend, which resulted in the emergency evacuation of residents nearby, is the fruit of such profit maximization.