EDWARDS' CAMPAIGN RHETORIC DENIES TORT BAR'S STATUS AMONG RICHEST, MOST POWERFUL SPECIAL INTERESTS

Media Should 'Harangue' Him About Campaign Contributions

Washington, DC, January 23, 2008 -- American Tort Reform Association director of communications Darren McKinney today urged media to question presidential aspirant John Edwards about his “incessant yet wholly incredible condemnation of other candidates for accepting campaign contributions from ‘PACs and special interests.’”

Referring to campaign finance data posted by the Center for Responsive Politics at OpenSecrets.org, McKinney said, “There hasn’t been a single industry group that’s consistently given more money to politicians since 1990 than lawyers and law firms. And no current presidential hopeful relies more heavily on donations from lawyers than former personal injury lawyer John Edwards.

“When the tort bar isn’t lobbying Congress for the preservation of its speculative class actions against telecoms for assisting post-9/11 anti-terrorism efforts, it’s pushing lawmakers to expand litigation opportunities with the inclusion of new private rights of action in Consumer Product Safety Act reauthorization, defense spending and housing bills,” McKinney continued. “If these and many similar lobbying efforts don’t constitute the behavior of a special interest, I don’t know what does.”

Campaign finance data indicate that lawyers’ and law firms’ contributions to all federal candidates during the last presidential election cycle (2004) totaled $183,992,874; more than the $167,370,544 in contributions from of the oil and gas, insurance, securities, and pharmaceuticals industries combined.

“Though Wall Street appears to be outspending the litigation industry this time around,” McKinney acknowledged, “the cycle is far from over, and lawyers’ spending thus far has been good enough for second place” in OpenSecrets’ ranking of 80 industry groups, which does not delineate between contributions from plaintiffs’ lawyers and those more closely associated with defendants. “And only once since 1990 – in both presidential and off-year election cycles – have lawyers finished in anything other than first place when it comes to campaign spending.

“Admittedly, Edwards’ chances of being elected president aren’t much better than mine at this point,” McKinney quipped. “But that’s no excuse for reporters and debate moderators – yes, I mean you, Wolf – to let him off the hook when he spouts his ‘I’ll fight the special interests’ nonsense. He is a special interest. Just because lawyers’ money isn’t coming to him via PACs, it’s still coming from a very powerful special interest and he ought to be called on it.”

McKinney pointed to an editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post [“Who Are the Huckabundlers?”] that challenged some campaign trickery allegedly bankrolled by fundraisers of another presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee. “[A]chieving disclosure by having editorial pages harangue candidates isn’t optimal,” The Post observed.

“Agreed,” McKinney said. “But since Edwards is always complaining about a lack of media attention anyway, maybe the media should ‘harangue’ him a little, too.”

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The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) is the only national organization dedicated exclusively to tort and liability reform through public education and the enactment of legislation. ATRA's membership includes non profits, small and large companies, as well as state and national trade, business, and professional associations.