Bush's Funding Scandal

By Katherine Lemons, AlterNet. Posted August 10, 2000.

George W. Bush does not forget a favor. Especially when it bears an extraordinarily large price tag. So when a coalition of surreptitiously corporate-funded "tort reform" groups posing as grassroots organizations gave him millions of dollars for his first gubernatorial race, he did not hesitate to return the favor.

While Bush was governor of Texas, he enacted numerous bills to support these so-called "Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse" (CALA) groups, whose goals are to protect corporations from costly and embarrassing class action lawsuits. The messy details of the underhanded deals have just been released in a new report by the Center for Justice & Democracy and Public Citizen. The report explains how CALAs funneled money from big business -- giants like Philip Morris, Dow Chemical, Exxon, General Electric, Aetna, Geico and Nationwide -- to support covert agendas, among them the buying of George W. Bush. To this day, some of Bush's largest cash cows are these corporate-funded CALAs.

CALAs, which are nationally coordinated, locally run groups, work to shield corporations from lawsuits by getting "tort reforms" passed. Tort reforms limit a citizen's ability to file class action lawsuits against corporations by placing caps on damages and preventing lawyers from taking cases without charging an up-front fee, severely limiting the options of poor clients who rely on settlements to pay lawyers. Their main weapon is the media, where they put out advertisements about the supposed evils of class actions lawsuits.

"At its core, the CALA message equates 'lawsuit abuse' with the efforts of injured consumers seeking to recover damages from those responsible. More broadly, the message is based on falsehoods that the legal system has spun "out-of-control," wrote co-authors Joanne Doroshow, director of the Center for Justice & Democracy and Carl Deal, investigative reporter, in the report.

In addition to buying airtime, tort reformers also buy politicians. Individuals and organizations affliated with two Texas tort reform groups gave between $4.1 and $4.5 million to George W. Bush's two gubernatorial campaigns, comprising 15 percent of the total contributions. Beholden to the special interest groups for his victories, Bush wasted no time waiting to repay them upon his arrival in office. According to the report, "Over his two terms, Bush signed a series of brutal bills that severely reduced injured consumers' rights, greatly reducing liability risks for Texas corporations."

Bush still receives financial support from tort reform groups. At least 75 percent of the members of the Texas Civil Justice League, the oldest "tort reform" lobbyists in the state, have contributed to the campaign.

In what the report implies is an obvious quid pro quo for all that financial support, Bush has dragged tort reform into his 2000 Presidential Race. Doroshow commented that while tort reform is not a pressing issue in the eyes of the greater American public, "Bush is making it an issue because it is important to big business ... and because his funders want him to."

The Tort Reform Craze

The tort reform craze began in the mid-1980s when insurance companies, due to mismanagement, significantly increased the premiums on policies they provided to businesses, doctors and non-profit groups, among others. The insurance companies blamed the increase on superfluous lawsuits, and in 1986, they gathered together hundreds of U.S. and foreign corporations in the development of the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), an organization devoted to limiting the public's ability to sue large corporations.

Several years later, in Bush's home state of Texas, two Mexican-American men won a $2.5 million wrongful termination jury award against the sugar mill where they worked. The local Chamber of Commerce grew concerned. The Chamber hired Jon Opelt, a political/marketing consultant, to found the first CALA.

The year that Opelt launched the Texas CALA, Vice President Dan Quayle made tort reform a priority. As the push for tort reform gained momentum, Quayle met with Opelt and urged him to extend the geographical scope of CALA.

"It took off like spontaneous combustion," Opelt said, maintaining his argument that CALAs have always been genuinely grass-roots organizations. Opelt took off with it, earning the nickname "Sloganeer" for the sound bites he developed --such as "Class Action Abuse. Pennies for Us. Millions For Lawyers" -- a message that appeared nationwide on billboards, television and radio.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »