Darren Fonda of Barron’s reports on investors’ reactions to the prospects of Judge Brett Kavanaugh joining the U.S. Supreme Court.
In nominating Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, President Donald Trump settled on a jurist with a long record of rulings judged favorable to business interests. Advocates of investor rights are wary, however. They view Kavanaugh as hostile to investor protections and eager to put a brake on the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies.
Supporters say he’s a methodical and principled jurist who takes a skeptical view of the “administrative state,” rolling back regulations that, in his view, Congress never expressly authorized.
Either way, analysts say, business interests likely have more to gain than lose if he wins confirmation—a point the White House made in drumming up support for its nominee this past week. “Judge Kavanaugh has overruled federal agency action 75 times,” the White House said in an email to business leaders. He “has led the effort to rein in unaccountable independent agencies.”
Kavanaugh has certainly built a reputation for pushing back against regulations as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Among his more influential rulings, he asserted that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was unconstitutional because it vested “enormous executive power in a single, unaccountable unchecked director.” In another case, he voted to require the Environmental Protection Agency to consider costs to industry when imposing antipollution rules.
