Word: reforms
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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Trial lawyers insist that the role they play is a vital one. The ability to sue for injuries is a basic American right, they say, one that supporters of tort reform are scheming to take away. "[Tort reform] is no more than a code to close the courthouse down to poor and middle-class people," says Jamail. "You don't see these corporations being tentative or bashful about running to the courthouse against each other or against individuals who don't pay their bills...
Supporters of tort reform complain that trial lawyers are fighting it by contributing millions of dollars to the campaign coffers of sympathetic elected officials and judges. Last year trial lawyers gave $2.7 million in soft money to the national Democratic Party. Angelos personally gave $400,000. In fact, most of this trial-lawyer money went to Democratic candidates for Congress--the group that has been most instrumental in holding the line against national tort reform...
...almost every stop in his bid for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, Senator John McCain of Arizona asked, "Why can't we get HMO reform? Because the Republicans are in the grip of the insurance companies, and the Democrats are controlled by the trial lawyers." McCain adds today that Congress "can't get anything done [on the Patients' Bill of Rights], so what is Dickie Scruggs doing? He's suing the HMOs. Is Dickie Scruggs doing the right thing? No. But do you blame him? No." Scruggs adds that "we wouldn't have made the progress we've made in civil...
...most issues, Bush and Gore seem to be trying to meet in the political center, yet they disagree sharply over the role of plaintiffs' lawyers. Bush pushed a sweeping tort-reform package through in Texas in 1995, including caps on punitive damages. Gore has opposed tort reform and has lately presented himself as a populist enemy of "big drug companies...
...bloated public-sector work force, which sees any change as a threat to its status and privileges. Among the perks enjoyed by civil servants: guaranteed job security, early retirement and proportionally higher pensions than those of private-sector employees. Another, related challenge is the near impossibility of reforming state institutions. Recent attempts to rejigger the antiquated tax-collection and school systems were blocked by striking civil servants and their powerful unions, costing two ministers their jobs and probably ending all serious reform attempts until the 2002 presidential election, in which Jospin is expected to square off against Chirac...