08/24/2005
The great annual spectacle is underway. Pre-season televised professional football games are already whetting the appetites of millions of Americans who are eager to witness countless hours of blitzes, bootlegs and buttonhooks all leading up to the game of games, Super Bowl XL in February 2006. By the time the season officially kicks off Sept. 8, fans will have enjoyed more than five-dozen games.
The audience will no doubt include millions of American small-business owners, their families and their employees who, deservedly, find in the sport a welcome break from the day-to-day challenges of running a small firm. But this seemingly pleasurable pastime could distract those business owners from keeping their eyes on the ball when a much more important contest gets underway in early October 2005.
The hype and hoopla generated when Green Bay squares off against Carolina on Oct. 3 will certainly overshadow the opening season of the United States Supreme Court, which begins its annual session earlier that day by hearing oral arguments on cases it will consider and rule upon the following spring. Not to diminish the prominence of football, but the arguments made before the Big Bench will ultimately have a greater impact on the bottom lines of American businesses than the audibles yelled at the line of scrimmage.
While most of the news coverage of the Supreme Court today centers on potential nominations of new justices and social issues, small-business owners should pay careful attention to the court’s docket. A significant number of the cases reviewed and ruled upon concern matters that affect virtually every aspect of free enterprise.
Just recently, the Supreme Court upset decades of standing property rights laws by expanding the power of local governments to use the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to condemn private property through the process of eminent domain, and delivered that property into the hands of another land-owner, who promised to use it to boost “economic development.”
In recent sessions, the High Court has also handed down decisions that will make small employers liable for age discrimination if they create an employment policy that even unintentionally affects older workers. Additionally, the Supreme Court ruled that independent small-business truckers have no recourse against states that want to impose even greater regulatory burdens on them than the federal government has established.
These rulings come on the heels of past Supreme Court sessions where justices have offered opinions that instantly and almost permanently change the rules of the game of entrepreneurship. Punitive damage awards, pensions, taxation, product liability and regulations of even the most mundane nature are appearing on the court’s docket with alarming frequency.
It’s an unfortunate fact that most Supreme Court justices, while experts in constitutional law, have virtually no experience with, and little understanding of, the trials and tribulations associated with starting and building a successful small business.
It won’t be nearly as entertaining as televised sports, but watching every play the court makes and pointing out offside moves to Congress is a task that small-business owners must undertake right away. This game is for keeps.
Jack Faris is the president of the National Federation of Independent Business, the nation’s largest small-business advocacy group. A non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 1943, NFIB represents the consensus views of its 600,000-members in Washington, D.C., and all 50 state capitals.
