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1/7/2009
Wednesday morning
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| 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. |
| Over all, trial lawyers raised $2.7 million in soft money donations for
Democrats in 1999, of a total of $49.4 million in soft dollars raised so far by
the party, according to a recent report from Common Cause, a Washington
nonprofit group. (By contrast, the Republicans got $2,800 in soft money from
trial lawyers, Common Cause reported, of $57.8 million in soft dollars over
all.) |
| In addition to soft money donations, which could be given to political parties
in unlimited amounts, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America Political
Action Committee has already made $658,000 in donations directly to individual
Democratic candidates and to party committees. This political action committee,
with its own fund-raising now in full swing, has been one of the largest in
each campaign cycle -- in the 1996 election it raised $5.1 million. |
| 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. |
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