Suing the Government? Call Scalia!

Staffers inside the Securities and Exchange Commission have a nickname for the massive Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law, which imposes hundreds of new federal rules on business: They call it the “Eugene Scalia Full Employment Act.” Funny, right?

Maybe the joke works better if you know who Eugene Scalia is. Over the past six years, the son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has argued four major cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, which hears challenges to federal policies, on behalf of corporate interests trying to knock down financial regulations. He’s won each time. In 2005 and 2006 he brought cases for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to dismiss two rules requiring mutual fund companies—at the time plagued by trading scandals—to place outside overseers on their boards. In 2010 he won a case brought by a group of insurance companies that argued the SEC shouldn’t have power to regulate fixed index annuities, an insurance investment linked to the fortunes of the stock market.