Now it’s Pennsylvania: Donna Rovito has got the goods on the trial bar’s efforts to influence the forthcoming (May 16) Republican primary for a state senate seat in the Wilkes-Barre area. They’re backing Kingston mayor Jim Haggerty, who’s facing off against former gubernatorial aide Lisa Baker and three other candidates (Mar. 23, scroll to item 5). Update May 21: Haggerty loses.
Posts Tagged ‘politics’
GAO Whistleblower on SDI
A senior Congressional investigator has accused his agency of covering up a scientific fraud among builders of a $26 billion system meant to shield the nation from nuclear attack. The disputed weapon is the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s antimissile plan, which is expected to cost more than $250 billion over the next two decades.The dispute is unusual. Rarely in the 85-year history of the G.A.O., an investigative arm of Congress with a reputation for nonpartisan accuracy, has a dissenter emerged publicly from its ranks.(NYT Apr. 2)
Bartlett, “Impostor”
In the mail: my old friend Bruce Bartlett’s new book, “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy“, discussed by its author here. I haven’t had a chance to do more than skim it, but here’s a truncated version of its Appendix I, reminding us of the record of Presidents in using their veto pens to stop legislation:
FDR…………635 vetoes
Truman…………250
Eisenhower…..181
Kennedy…………21
Johnson…………30
Nixon……………..43
Ford………………66
Carter…………….31
Reagan………….78
G.H.W. Bush…..44
Clinton……………38
Geo. W. Bush……0
Among the legislation enacted under the presidency of George W. Bush is the free-speech-curtailing McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill (which he’d pledged to veto), Sarbanes-Oxley, the prescription drug entitlement, and the expansion of the federal role in education, as well as innumerable profligate appropriations bills. The most recent president to veto no bills, before the current one, was James Garfield, who served for only about a half year in 1881 because of his untimely death.
Flying the trial lawyer skies
Duly noted: Pennsylvania state treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Robert P. Casey Jr. last June made his first fund-raising trip outside the East Coast, flying to Dallas aboard a private jet owned by the law firm of Baron & Budd, poster kids for legal ethics in the asbestos realm. “Casey flew out of Dallas with more than $71,000, including $28,000 from employees of Baron and Budd.” (Carrie Budoff, “Money at center of Senate contest”, Knight Ridder/Centre Daily Times, Feb. 13)(OpenSecrets.org). Similar: Jan. 8, 2001 (Sen. Edward Kennedy).
“Save auto industry jobs by reforming legal system”
That’s the call of today’s Detroit News editorial. “If the goal is to protect consumers, as tort lawyers claim, wouldn’t it be better to seek tougher federal standards rather than sue the people who research, invent and bring to market the products that consumers want? The obvious answer is yes, but that would eliminate a source of continuing revenue for plaintiff’s lawyers.”
Campaign finance reform
Tom Veal notes another instance in which life imitates Scrappleface (Jan. 25).
Update: Silver’s office settles sex claim
New York: “The leadership of the State Assembly has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former legislative aide who said she had been raped by the chief counsel to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver….[former counsel J. Michael Boxley] will make a small payment toward the settlement, but most of the money will be taxpayers’ funds.” (Jennifer Medina, “Assembly Settles Suit on Sexual Misconduct”, New York Times, Jan. 28). See our coverage of Jun. 15, 2004. In a Summer 2004 City Journal piece, Stefan Kanfer sketches out a couple of the background aspects that make the whole episode piquant for Albany-watchers, if not for the parties involved:
Up in Albany, Sheldon Silver is speaker of the Democrat-controlled assembly — just the sort of guy a hard-line feminist could love, ever eager to promote laws punishing cads who take advantage of women. …Furthering the irony, Silver in his spare time is counsel to Weitz and Luxenberg, one of New York’s most influential law firms, known to prosecute torts like the one confronting the speaker.
“It’s not spam when I send it”
“Attorney general Charlie Crist was an integral player in getting an anti-spam law passed last year in the state of Florida. Under the law, offenders are subject to fines of up to $500 for every e-mail sent. Now running for governor, someone on the Crist campaign is responsible for sending e-mails to promote the candidacy and solicit campaign donations. Recipients have reportedly attempted to unsubscribe without success.” A Crist spokeswoman says the emails don’t count as spam because they’re not deceptive. (Clickz blog, Jan. 9; Adam C. Smith, “Crist e-mail draws ire”, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 21; “From anti-spam stand to e-mail campaign”, AP/Miami Herald, Dec. 23; Brian McWilliams, Dec. 24; Geek.com). For more on anti-spam laws and related issues, see, e.g., Jul. 25, 2005 and Dec. 3, 2003.
“Media reform” and campaign finance law
They operate as a pincer movement, contends Brian Anderson in City Journal, and they’re both aimed at choking off certain unwelcome (if popular) points of view in public discussion. (“The Plot to Shush Rush and O’Reilly”, Winter).
“Texas Shark Watch”
We’ve earlier reported on the threat to the free market posed by social-conservative trial-lawyers seeking to hijack the Republican party. (See also this National Review article on the Astroturf “Center for a Just Society” that quotes me and Walter.) There’s now an organization, Texas Shark Watch (via Childs), tracking the trend in Texas, and demanding that Texas Republicans sign a pledge not to take trial-lawyer money. And they also blog. (Update: May 21).