Jump to full article: Raw Story, 2008-06-24
Author: Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
Intro: As a result of the tobacco lawsuits, some Republican politicians and tobacco industry lobbyists -- such as now-Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour -- appear to have become implacable foes of the trial lawyers who had frustrated them and their clients. . . .
In Mississippi, the corporate client was big tobacco -- and their chief lobbyist now sits in the Mississippi governor's chair.
The second aspect of the strategy is the politicization of US law enforcement by the Bush administration, . . .
In addition, by targeting Paul Minor, Barbour and his backers ensured a glacial freeze in contributions to Democratic candidates, since other Democratic trial lawyers were afraid of being targeted by the US Attorney's office as well. . . .
That summer, the Mississippi state legislature had begun holding hearings on whether to enact tort reform, the strategy promoted by the tobacco industry to limit settlements to plaintiffs which had been so effectively used by Rove to defeat Democratic judges in both Texas and Alabama and pass pro-corporate legislation.
A few months later, Mississippi newspapers began to print leaked allegations that the FBI had launched an investigation of Paul Minor -- a leading opponent of tort reform . . .
In early 2004, Haley Barbour took office as governor of Mississippi. Almost immediately thereafter, he called a special session of the legislature to ban class action lawsuits and cap damages in almost all tort cases. In 2006, Barbour won a lengthy court battle to completely withdraw funding from an anti-smoking program which had been highly successful in reducing smoking among middle school and high school students.
Big tobacco had finally accomplished its goals through the use of the political machine.
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