How to Buy Friends and Influence Politicians
March 2, 2010
Legal Newsline has a piece tracing the trial bar’s largesse to the Senate’s second highest ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin. Although he isn’t up for re-election until 2014, Durbin has already raked in more than $86,000 from asbestos litigation mill Simmons Cooper, making the firm his #1 funder. All told, lawyers and law firms have funneled more than $2.4 million into Durbin’s war chest, according to the invaluable folks at opensecrets.org. That’s more than triple the donations of any other industry.
So what is the trial bar buying? According to Jim Copland, who runs the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Legal Policy:
“He is the majority whip of the Senate so he can basically prevent any sort of legal reform ideas that are adverse to the plaintiffs’ bar from getting through the Senate. Similarly, he can help to drive legislation through the Senate to expand litigation, to expand liability.”
We already know the trial bar successfully kept medical liability reform out of bills to overhaul the health care system. As Copeland noted last week in the Wall Street Journal, in the last election cycle, lawyers donated about $25 million more than all the doctors, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, hospitals and nursing homes combined.