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3/16/2010
Tuesday morning
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| To that end, while trial lawyers have long been heavy Democratic Party donors,
the prospect of a Bush candidacy, along with the possibility that like-minded
Republicans would retain control of Congress, has ratcheted up the stakes, and
the donations. |
| Mr. Bushs $70 million campaign war chest was financed, in large part, with
donations from rich individuals and corporate interests, the same interests
that trial lawyers have challenged in court. As a result, a financial version
of the arms race has broken out. The more the Bush campaign and the Republican
Party in general raised from business, the more trial lawyers said they must
raise, and vice versa. |
| Moreover, with the lawyers fees in the tobacco settlement running into the
hundreds of millions, even billions, many of those trial lawyers have had a lot
more to donate this election cycle. More than a half-dozen law firms involved
in the tobacco settlement have each given the Democratic Party more than
$100,000 in the unlimited, unregulated donations known as soft money, some
writing checks as large as $400,000. |
| We dont have the kind of target operation that trial lawyers do, said Victor
Schwartz, general counsel of the American Tort Reform Association, a Washington
lobbying group. When business makes donations, they do to those who support a
whole multiplicity of issues. Our members are not single issue people. |
| Now that they have triumphed over the tobacco industry, trial lawyers have
found a new target, Gov. George W. Bush, and they have been spending huge
amounts of money from the tobacco settlement to keep him and other Republicans
from being elected. |
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