NY Times Article on the Tort War

Jeremy Thurman

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Sunday's New York Times business section carried the following story below: "To the Trenches: The Tort War Is Raging On" by Jonathan Glater.

There is a good and balanced article on the war to change our civil laws state by state by these nations’ biggest businesses including insurance, oil companies and mega pharmaceutical corporations and their lobbying group, the National Chamber.

The one thing that struck me, and is glaringly absent in the public perception is the vast difference in expenditures of the National Chamber vs. The National Trial lawyer group (AAJ). Here is a quote from the article: “The national chamber itself, which represents millions of businesses of all sizes, is the biggest spender on the lobbying. In 2006, it spent $72.7 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group that tracks money in politics. On the trial lawyers’ side, the American Association for Justice spent $8.3 million that year.”

In Oklahoma you would find the same thing with the Oklahoma Chamber funded by Chesapeake, Devon and doctors with the same disparity in lobbying monies. I think this effectively breaks the old adage about the rich trial lawyers currying favor which you so often hear by some of this state’s republican loud mouths.