tort reform

Texas flagJustice Dale Wainwright, a sitting Republican member of the Texas Supreme Court, is up for election later this year. Journalist Clay Robison notes that Wainwright is busy fundraising and this "means collecting campaign money, perfectly legally, from litigants and potential litigants." One of the hosts of a recent fundraising event for Wainwright was the Texas Civil Justice League, which contributed $6,000 to his campaign. The league, Robison writes, is "one of several business-oriented groups that have filed briefs urging the high court to reaffirm a controversial decision giving refineries and other industrial plants a new shield against liability claims from contract workers injured on the job." The next hearing on the case is in two weeks' time. Other sponsors of the fundraising event included ConocoPhillips, Koch Industries, American Electric Power, AT&T, Pfizer and the Texas Medical Association, "all of whom also are keenly interested in the outcome of the contract workers' case or any number of other issues before the high court."

Kevin Anderson, blog editor for the UK Guardian, was bemused by an advertisement posted in the Washington DC subway. "This ad of a man's beer belly stuffed with bills railing away against trial lawyers probably makes little sense to the average American. ... Figuring out who is behind ads like this is even more interesting. The ad highlights an innocuous sounding website www.ConsumerFreedom.com (because who would be against consumer freedom?). What is this group? SourceWatch gives the history and current campaigns of the Center for Consumer Freedom. They originally started to fight against smoking restrictions in restaurants backed with money from tobacco giant Philip Morris. They have since expanded into other areas including anti-anti-obesity. Hard-hitting news funny man Stephen Colbert gets to the bottom of the story in this interview of Rick Berman, the PR man behind the Center for Consumer Freedom."

When the major American tobacco companies signed the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with the 46 states who sued to recover the costs of treating sick smokers, the companies agreed to nominal advertising restrictions and massive yearly payouts to the states. Lawyers who made money on the settlement began donating heavily to the Democratic Party, which opposes the corporate-organized "tort reform movement" that works to block such suits in the future. The massive lawsuit, subsequent settlement and increased donations to the Democratic Party (particularly in the South) sparked a vicious, under-the-radar war between Southern Democrats, the Republican Party and its corporate allies. Raw Story exposes the serious repercussions the tobacco settlement has had on the integrity of U.S. elections, particularly in the Southern U.S., as the Republican Party and corporate interests seek to cut off Democratic donations and exact retribution on lawyers and public officials involved in the original lawsuit.

"Ed Gillespie, who will help promote President Bush's future nominee to a vacancy on the Supreme Court, is a top-tier lobbyist who represents a host of clients with direct and indirect interests in the outcome of Supreme Court decisions." Gillespie's task is "to use the tools and techniques of a presidential campaign to put together a conservative political machine equipped to take on the alliance of groups on the political left." But his firm, Quinn Gillespie & Associates, "represents corporations and trade associations with strong bottom-line interests in court rulings involving corporate liability, tort reform, antitrust and securities issues." Clients include the American Petroleum Institute, Microsoft, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Gillespie refused to discuss "the conflict-of-interest rules that will govern his activities," but others say "he is likely to give up active representation of clients" while he works for the nominee's confirmation.

The Washington Post reports on how House Majority Whip Roy Blunt "has converted what had been an informal and ad hoc relationship between congressional leaders and the Washington corporate and trade community into a formal, institutionalized alliance." Blunt's "organization of whips and lobbyist vote counters ... has delivered more than 50 consecutive victories for the GOP leadership on tough fights over issues including tax and trade bills, District of Columbia school choice and tort reform." The "de facto 'executive committee'" of "the Republican leadership's K Street lobbying arm" includes Ed Gillespie of Quinn Gillespie & Associates; Mark Isakowitz and Samantha Poole of Fierce, Isakowitz and Blalock; Tony Rudy of Alexander Strategy Group and Greenberg Traurig; Lyle Beckwitch of the National Association of Convenience Stores; and Ralph Hellmann of the Information Technology Industry Council.

"These are heady days on Capitol Hill for business lobbyists," writes Stephen Labaton. "After suffering numerous setbacks in President Bush's first term, business lobbyists now say they have the wind at their backs." In addition to pushing for "tort reform" (which limits what people can collect in damages if they sue a corporation), lobbyists are also getting Congress to ram through new legislation that "would make it significantly more difficult and expensive for poor and moderate-income families to use bankruptcy protection to shield themselves from creditors. The bill's supporters say it is necessary to curb abusive filings, although its critics say it is largely a gift to the credit card and banking industries."

Conservative activist Grover Norquist, from Americans for Tax Reform, told Australian Financial Review journalist Tony Walker that three of his political priorities – tort reform, curtailing political contributions from unions, and promoting free trade – would have the combined effect of weakening support for the Democratic Party. Grover’s dream is that the conservative revolution runs for another 12 years. “If we do our job right over the next four years, weakening the institutions of the left, reducing the cost of government, reforming the government so that it becomes less intrusive in such a way that we deserve and win the presidency in 2008, that would give us another eight years," he said.

by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

PR Watch has obtained documents detailing the secret relationship between Philip Morris, the tobacco-and-food conglomerate, and "Contributions Watch," a PR front group which poses as a "public interest" campaign reform organization. CW's hidden agenda is to dig up dirt at the state level for the corporate clients of its creator, a Washington, DC public relations firm called the State Affairs Company (SAC). SAC and CW work to attack the political enemies of their clients, and to smear the "hidden, undisclosed consumerist agendas" of real public interest groups like Consumers Union, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Ralph Nader's Public Interest Research Group, and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.

When PR Watch phoned CW Executive Director Warren Miller on September 26, he refused to take our call.

by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

State Affairs Company isn't the only powerful DC PR/lobby outfit behind the Contributions Watch deception. So is APCO & Associates, a part of the Grey Advertising empire. APCO specializes in setting up front groups and coalitions for the tobacco and insurance industries.

APCO's vice presidents, Neal Cohen and B. Jay Cooper, work with Contributions Watch on behalf of Philip Morris. Cohen and Cooper are the PR wizards behind the so-called "tort reform movement" and groups such as the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA).

by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

Over the past half century the tobacco industry, led by Philip Morris, has used front groups like the Tobacco Industry Research Committee and the National Smokers Alliance (a SAC client) to protect its $100 billion a year in gross profits.

Philip Morris is currently a major force and financier behind "tort reform"--the big business campaign to radically reduce the damages that companies must pay for the deaths, pain and suffering caused by their products.

Tobacco, an addictive drug, kills millions world-wide every year.