As they prepare to face off over the next coronavirus relief bill, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a trial lawyers group are each trying to convince lawmakers that the American public is on their side.
The Chamber and its allies are lobbying Congress to make it harder for workers and customers to sue companies they blame for giving them the virus, arguing that such provisions will protect businesses as the economy reopens. The American Association for Justice, which represents trial lawyers, is fighting back, saying such proposals would shield reckless companies from being held responsible.
Both sides have pointed to polls showing the public agrees with their arguments.
The trial lawyers hired Hart Research Associates, a Democratic polling firm, which surveyed more than 1,200 voters online last week. The pollsters told voters that companies want to prevent workers and consumers who contract coronavirus from suing them “even if they could demonstrate that the company engaged in unsafe practices.” Sixty-four percent of respondents said they opposed giving companies such immunity, while 36 percent supported it.
A poll conducted days earlier by the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies for the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform found the opposite among 800 voters surveyed by phone. Asked whether “Congress should protect many businesses and types of companies from lawsuits related to the coronavirus,” 61 percent of voters agreed and 27 percent said no.
Voters were particularly supportive of granting protections to grocery stores and pharmacies, with 84 percent in favor and 13 percent opposed.
Both sides plan to cite the polls as they lobby lawmakers, who are divided over how much protection, if any, to grant companies as part of the next relief bill.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have said they won’t agree to a bill that doesn’t include liability protections for businesses, while Democrats have expressed skepticism about the idea. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hold a hearing on the issue next week.
Harold Kim, who leads the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, said in an interview that his group’s proposal was “tailored” to preventing a tsunami of lawsuits from hitting businesses as they hustle to reopen. It wouldn’t protect companies that didn’t follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s coronavirus guidelines, he said.
But Julia Duncan, a lobbyist for the American Association for Justice, said the Chamber’s proposal wasn’t nearly as targeted as advertised, pointing to similar bills in North Carolina and Utah.
“These aren’t narrow, targeted proposals,” she said. “These are broad, sweeping immunities under the heading of something they want you to think is more reasonable.”
Duncan and the trade group’s other lobbyists are walking lawmakers through the proposal piece by piece in an effort to convince them it’s less benign that it sounds.
“The devil is really in the details,” she said.