In the
first entry in this series,
"Tort Reform":Truth to the Lies, Part 1: How Bob Perry Bought Texas for Karl Rove, we saw how Karl Rove, largely with money he got from Bob Perry , created the "tort reform" movement in Texas as a political tool to be used for fundraising and promoting conservative Republican candidates. James Moore outlined the details in a
Salon article. When Karl Rove went to Washington Tom DeLay took over in Texas and built upon the foundation Rove had built, eventually managing to gain control of the state legislature. Rove's "tort reform" foundation helped make possible the subsequent redistricting that Delay pushed through as well as paybacks for donor Bob Perry. (
link,
link)
Meanwhile, Rove had also begun to conspire with big tobacco. From 1991 to 1996 he worked as a consultant for Philip Morris. (pdf link) It was during this time that big tobacco, also with a little help from Ken Starr and Dan Quayle, began to promote CALA (Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse) chapters nationwide (summary link, with more details here):
· A huge cache of documents made public during the state attorneys general litigation against the tobacco industry in the late 1990s that was specially analyzed for this report reveals that Big Tobacco spent millions of dollars a year (and in at least one year $15 million) supporting ATRA, state CALAs, and other activities to weaken tort laws in many states. For instance, in 1995, Big Tobacco allocated $5.5 million for ATRA, more than half of ATRA's budget. In some cases, CALAs, such as the one in Louisiana, were virtually created by the tobacco industry. Tobacco money has gone directly to ATRA, APCO, and state organizations. It has also been indirectly funneled to the cause through law firms, such as the Washington, D.C. firm Covington & Burling, trade associations and lobbyists. The industry's Tobacco Institute also played an instrumental role through its State Activities Division. In the 1980s, Big Tobacco's efforts were instrumental in the passage of legislation immunizing the industry against products liability claims in New Jersey and California. Other states in which the industry secretly worked to undermine tort laws include Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
· The CALA blueprint was honed in South Texas in the early 1990s where the first group to carry the "lawsuit abuse" message ran doom and gloom television and radio ads warning that the legal system was out of control, affecting the economy and the pocketbooks of average people. Creating a model that was duplicated nationwide, the Texas CALA groups developed a statewide support network that included the Texas Chamber of Commerce, the right-wing Texas Public Policy Foundation, and numerous corporations wishing to shield themselves from consumer lawsuits.
· George W. Bush, who raised more than $4 million in his gubernatorial races from corporate special interests who have benefited from his "tort reform" platform, has been one of Texas CALA's most prominent champions. One of his first acts as governor in 1995 was to meet with representatives of nine Texas CALAs after which he declared a legislative "emergency" on "frivolous lawsuits." Governor Bush subsequently signed into law a series of brutal "tort reform" measures.
· In 1991, then U.S. Solicitor General (and former tobacco lawyer) Ken Starr prepared an influential "Starr report" on behalf of the White House Council on Competitiveness, headed by Vice President Dan Quayle, making "tort reform" a priority issue for the George Bush administration. Quayle took the Starr report on the road in 1992, and helped encourage Texas CALA to go statewide, then nationwide.
· From its Washington, D.C. headquarters, ATRA helped take the CALA campaign statewide in Texas, then nationwide by making direct contributions to the groups, by providing them with material and by developing a series of cookie-cutter advertising campaigns. The CALAs' strategy and message has been coordinated by ATRA and its public relations consultant APCO & Associates, which supply the groups with strategic guidance, media training, and pre-produced radio, television, print advertising and billboards designed for maximum media exposure and legislative impact. Other regional and national political consultants and polling firms help tailor the CALA message to local concerns.
Along with Rove in big tobacco's pocket is the US Chamber of Commerce. They even ran ads on behalf of big tobacco in 2002 (
link):
The ads follow classic lobbying and public relations rules:
· When your side is unpopular, as the tobacco industry is, seek to redirect public ire toward other villains - in this case, trial lawyers, taxes and big government. When the words "trial lawyers" are spoken in a spot aired by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the screen shows a black stretch limousine passing by the Capitol.
But big tobacco isn't the only suspicious advocate of tort reform. From the same summary linked to above:
· While CALA groups tell the media, as well as lawmakers, that they are sustained by small donations from ordinary citizens, the money trail from many of these groups leads directly to large corporate donors, including tobacco, insurance, oil and gas, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, medical associations, and auto manufacturers. They are also funded by ATRA, as well as professional associations, local businesses and industries that also wish to be shielded from consumer lawsuits.
"Tort reform" is really just another way for businesses and industries such as those mentioned above to limit or eliminate their liability and thus avoid responsibility for their actions. Here is Molly Ivins on the results of "tort deform," as she calls it, in Texas (
link):
Since Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the tort-deform business lobby, paid for the election of the new Republican majority in the House, it naturally expected value-for-money -- and got it. ...During the days of debate in the House, three of the top donors to Texans for Lawsuit Reform sat in the House gallery along with the speaker's wife. This section of the gallery was christened "The Owners' Box" by Democrats, and that's just what it was. The Texas Observer ran the records on TRL's top donors and found that Dick Weekly, of Weekly Homes, has been named a defendant in 10 civil suits in Harris County since the start of 2002, four involving deceptive trade allegations. Harlan Crow, son of construction magnate Trammell Crow, has been named in 16 civil suits since 1986. But the winner is Bob Perry of Perry Homes, sued more than 60 times in the past 15 years. And now, they're free at last.
Here is some insight into what tort reform advocates have done nationally (link):
The CALA message is a sly deception designed to appeal broadly to patriotic, hard-working Americans, many of whom will ultimately serve on juries. At its core, the message equates "lawsuit abuse" with the efforts of injured consumers seeking to recover damages from those responsible. More broadly, the CALA message is based on the falsehoods that the legal system has spun out of control; that lawsuits tax the economy and consumers; that lawsuits create economic hardship for working people; that the tort law system is designed to line the pockets of trial lawyers; and that tort laws are anti-consumer. Unfortunately, many jurors around the country have been influenced by this erroneous message due to the marketing campaign of ATRA, APCO and the CALAs, and as a result, statistics reflect juries' increasingly antagonistic attitude toward injured plaintiffs.
To get more insight into the lobbying success and true motives of national tort reform advocates one can take a look at how many of the same industries promoting tort reform (see the list above) have benefitted from the Bush administration's dismantling of public safety rules (link):
Bush's Big Business Agenda
Analysis by The Washington Post and The New York Times shows the Bush administration is continuing to use regulatory action, exempt from Congressional oversight and often hidden from public scrutiny, to further a big business agenda despite demonstrated risks to public health and safety. An extensive analysis by the WP reveals the administration has employed regulatory action "
to implement far-reaching policy changes...
The NYT notes the public has been distracted by Iraq and the fight against terrorism. Meanwhile, "Health rules, environmental regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety disclosure policies have been
modified in ways that often please business and industry leaders." The weakening of regulations has possibly endangered "consumers, workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others." Check out American Progress' and OMB Watch's
report on the Bush administration's dismantling of public safeguards.
THE RECORD: According to the Post's analysis, President Bush's deregulatory record represents a radical departure from previous administrations. "All presidents have written or eliminated regulations to further their agendas," the Post notes. "What is distinctive about Bush is that he quickly imposed a culture intended to put his anti-regulatory stamp on government." In the past 3 1/2 years, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the branch of the Labor Department in charge of workers' well-being, "has eliminated nearly five times as many pending standards as it has completed. It has not started any major new health or safety rules, setting Bush apart from the previous three presidents, including Ronald Reagan. Unlike his two predecessors, Bush has canceled more of the unfinished regulatory work he inherited than he has completed."
ADMINISTRATION SAYS SAFETY INFO "NOT OF MUCH INTEREST": One example of the Bush administration's disregard for public safety: On Saturday, the NYT highlighted a controversial regulation published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration forbidding the release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles. Following the lead of auto company lobbyists, the administration said "publicizing the information would cause 'substantial competitive harm' to manufacturers," even though it might help consumers choose safer cars. Chief spokesman Ray Tyson said he was sure the now-suppressed information, which includes "warranty-claim information, industry reports on safety issues and consumer complaints," would not be "of much interest to the general public." Last week, the NYT documented how the administration is trying to rewrite coal regulations in favor of owners, rescinding "more than a half-dozen proposals intended to make coal miners' jobs safer, including steps to limit miners' exposure to toxic chemicals."
QUESTIONING THE DATA: Since it would be embarrassing to simply tell consumers and workers it's not willing to make businesses pay to protect them, the Bush administration has developed a different strategy for achieving regulatory roll backs: question the science. In today's WP addresses with the Data Quality Act, a little-known piece of legislation "written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate." The act is supposedly meant to ensure new regulations are based on "sound science," but the WP found it has been used predominantly by industry to challenge scientific data indicating risks to workers or consumers. Included among the petitions so far: sugar interests challenged dietary recommendations to limit sugar intake; logging groups challenged calculations used to justify restrictions on timber harvests; and the American Chemistry Council challenged data meant to justify bans on wood treated with heavy metals and arsenic in playground equipment.
HORMONE DISRUPTION NO REASON FOR ALARM: Hermaphrodite frogs? No cause for alarm, says the Bush administration, and no need to regulate the chemical creating them. Indeed, the WP says the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) used language provided by a petition filed under the Data Quality Act to stifle reforms aimed at curbing the use of atrazine, a major weed-killer found by scientists to disrupt hormones in wildlife - "in some cases turning frogs into bizarre creatures bearing both male and female sex organs." A sentence added to the EPA's final scientific assessment last year stated that "Hormone disruption...cannot be considered a 'legitimate regulatory endpoint at this time' -- that is, it is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical's use -- because the government had not settled on an officially accepted test for measuring such disruption." The language "rendered moot hundreds of pages of scientific evidence."
Part 3 of this series will focus specifically on tort reform and the health insurance industry.
