| If you had Bush in the White House and a Republican House, bingo, tort reform
would go to the top of the agenda, Mr. Makinson said. And the tobacco
settlement has been the pot of gold that has enabled trial lawyers to suddenly
have lots of capital behind them. |
| Of course, the animosity between trial lawyers and Mr. Bush went back further
than Mr. Bushs candidacy, extending to his father. Many remembered President
George Bushs derision of trial lawyers in their tasseled loafers during the
1992 campaign, and the words still smarted. |
| 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. |
| And money is what it is all about. When it comes to political action,
corporate America was the pioneer in spending money on campaigns, said Stanley
M. Chesley, a Cincinnati lawyer whose firm gave the Democrats $122,500. They
make trial lawyers look like Mickey Mouse. So trial lawyers are attempting not
only to catch up, but to be a copy cat. If Bush can raise $70 million, the
question is, How can you compete? And there is only one way and that is to
raise that kind of money. |
| While money from trial lawyers has gone to all kinds of Democratic committees,
the lawyers have made it clear that their No. 1 target was Mr. Bush. Last
month, Mr. Bush issued a five-point plan to curb frivolous lawsuits and said
he wanted to expand nationwide efforts that he had pushed in Texas that he said
had saved Texas businesses $3 billion by reducing civil litigation. |
