Alicia Mundy of The Wall Street Journal has a piece on the politics of tort reform in today’s edition.

Mundy notes that judges are putting holds on major cases pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision on Wyeth v. Levine, a case to be heard on November 3. While that case is pending, Mundy describes how the pro-reform and anti-reform forces are furiously backing candidates who take opposing sides on restricting some cases to federal court, and recognizing the sovereignty of FDA and other regulatory agencies.

“It is a war,” one Houston attorney tells Mundy. Well, that part is right.

But then she reports: “Trial lawyers are expected to be heavily outspent.” Huh?

Mundy writes that the Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform intends to raise $40 million to back political candidates this year. But remember, trial lawyers have made billions of dollars from tobacco, asbestos and other settlements. This is why John Edwards can afford to live in a Dixie Versailles.

The trial lawyers’ national organization, the so-called “American Association of Justice,” is number four on OpenSecrets.org’s ranking of “Top All Time Donors” to campaigns, ahead of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Altria, the National Rifle Association and dozens more. Lawyers and law firms (defense and plaintiffs’ firms combined) contribute millions to candidates every year — $142 million so far in just this election cycle, 75% of that going to Democrats. Because there are so many of these trial bar tycoons, their money will be harder to track. But rest assured their contributions will exceed other efforts.

Putting together the myriad ways trial lawyers influence the law, of course, would be a hard task. Some would call it “investigative reporting.”