Liberal Dems vote to give their big contributors tens of $$$billions, at the expense of children and the poor. Reps forced the Dems to reveal their real reason for their anti-tobacco stance but are still thwarted by Reps:
June 17, 1998
Senate Votes to Limit Lawyers' Fees in
Tobacco Suits
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
WASHINGTON -- In what could be a crucial week on tobacco
legislation, the Senate voted on Tuesday by the narrowest of margins
to limit lawyers' fees in suits against cigarette makers.
The vote came shortly after Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the majority leader,
scheduled a meeting of all Republican senators for Wednesday morning to
decide whether to stop debate on the tobacco bill and bring the legislation to a
final vote.
The amendment added to the extensive tobacco bill provides that lawyers who
took the greatest risk and were involved in cases before 1995 could collect as
much as $4,000 an hour. But the allowable fee would drop on a sliding scale
so that those who enter cases after Tuesday could not charge more than $500
an hour. As matters now stand, some lawyers could make tens of millions of
dollars from tobacco suits that have been settled.
"For those who were in this litigation early," said Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash.,
the sponsor of the amendment, "the reward they have earned is considerably
larger than the awards that will be earned by those who got into this litigation
very late in the game when it was obvious that the litigation was going to be
settled for large amounts of money or litigated successfully."
Gorton's amendment was approved, 49 to 48. Two earlier amendments to
restrict lawyers' fees that were rejected, one last month and one last week, did
not distinguish between lawyers who brought suits early and those who
became involved late.
The question of lawyers' fees is a highly partisan one and goes far beyond the
tobacco issue. For years, trial lawyers have been among the Democrats' most
loyal and generous supporters. Republicans, on the other hand, depend more
on business interests for political support. These interests fear damage suits
generally and are especially worried that trial lawyers will use the windfall from
tobacco suits to finance suits in other areas.
Sponsors of the tobacco legislation said that they hoped the cap on legal fees
would enhance the prospects of Senate passage of the bill soon.
But the legislation's chances are bleak in the House, where Republican leaders
have said that they are unalterably opposed to the Senate bill. They have not
offered a measure of their own. But they seem to favor dealing with teen-age
smoking with the low-budget, approach of "Just Say No" that the Reagan
administration took to drug abuse.
The main interest of President Clinton, who favors strong anti-smoking
legislation, is to get virtually any bills passed by the Senate and House so a
conference committee will have an opportunity to work out a final bill.
Conference committees are where the White House has the most influence
because that is where the threat of a presidential veto becomes most
meaningful.
In the Senate, Democrats are almost unanimously in favor of ending the debate
on the tobacco bill, a procedure called cloture that requires 60 votes in the
100-member Senate for approval.
Republicans are split on the question. If Lott proposes cloture, considered the
prerogative of the majority leader, enough Republicans will probably go along
to approve it. If that happens, the bill will almost surely be passed.
Republicans have voted solidly against cloture motions on the tobacco bill
proposed by Democrats, considering them challenges to the Republican
leadership.
Lott has expressed serious personal reservations about the tobacco legislation,
as have many other Republican senators. But Lott has also said repeatedly
that the Senate needs to move on to other important bills like those that
provide the money to run the government.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chief sponsor of the tobacco bill, said
Tuesday that he hoped the resolution of the issue of lawyers' fees would
provide the impetus for the Republican leadership to support cloture.
"It's time we made a decision on this bill," he said.
Democrats have said that they will prevent the Senate from dealing with any
other issue until the tobacco bill is voted up or down, and they seem to have
the votes to sustain that threat.
The only remaining contentious amendment, McCain said, involves whether to
end the government's price-support program for tobacco growers and what
kind of assistance to offer the farmers and communities whose economies are
dependent on tobacco. Debate on those matters began on Tuesday.
As the bill stands now, it would raise cigarette prices by at least $1.10 a pack,
give the government new authority to regulate cigarette advertising and
marketing, and impose penalties on the tobacco companies if the rate of
teen-age smoking did not fall to specified levels.
The bill would also give a tax break to married couples with incomes below
$50,000 a year and create a new anti-drug program.
Voting on the amendment to limit lawyers' fees was stretched to 40 minutes,
about twice as long as normal, as the two sides tried desperately to switch
votes to tilt the issue their way.
At the end, Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who had voted against the
amendment, was prevailed on by the Republican leadership to change his
vote, providing the one-vote margin of victory.
Mary Healy, a spokesman for Smith, said he was persuaded that the bill
would go down to defeat without a limit on lawyers' fees and that this was his
last chance to vote on such limits.
Forty-five Republicans and four Democrats voted for the amendment.
Forty Democrats and eight Republicans voted against it.
Voting "present" because of family conflicts were Lott, whose brother-in-law
is the main lawyer in Mississippi's suit against the tobacco industry, and Sen.
Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., whose husband's law firm is involved in tobacco
cases.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., who recently had heart surgery, was absent.
Tuesday's vote was probably the final one on lawyers' fees in this round, but
the matter will doubtless come up again before any tobacco bill is enacted.
In their suits against tobacco companies, many states and individuals retained
private lawyers on a contingency basis, meaning that the lawyers got nothing if
they lost in court but were entitled to a percentage of the damages if they won
or if the suit was settled.
No one anticipated how large those fees might be. In Texas, for instance, the
industry settled with the state for $15.3 billion, and the contract calls for
lawyers to receive 15 percent. Lester Brickman, a professor at the Cardozo
Law School at Yeshiva University who helped draft the Gorton amendment,
was hired as an expert by the state of Texas. He concluded that the lawyers'
fees would amount to $92,000 an hour based on their work product and the
percentage claimed. But under the amendment, the lawyers would receive
about $2,000 an hour based on the fact that the lawsuit was filed in 1996.
The amendment would allow lawyers who began litigation before 1995, when
many put up their own money to pay for the suits and when the prospect of
winning seemed remote, to collect up to $4,000 an hour.
Those who became involved between the beginning of 1995 and April 1997,
when secret negotiations began between the tobacco companies and state
attorneys general, could get up to $2,000 an hour.
Lawyers who started cases between April 1997 and Tuesday could charge
$1,000 an hour, and those who sign on after Tuesday could get no more than
$500 an hour.
Brickman estimated that the amendment would result in lawyer fee reductions
of tens of billions of dollars in coming years. He said that he believed that the
biggest losers would be lawyers in Florida and Texas who were seeking to
enforce contingency agreements with states as well as those lawyers who filed
tobacco cases in the last year.
nytimes.com
The trial lawyers will still be getting billions as a result of Clinton's maneuver to enrich his contributors and soak the poor.
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