Jump to full article: Southeast Texas Record, 2009-10-21
Author: Steve Korris
Intro: For nine years prospective federal judge nominee Jack McConnell battled paint makers with boundless powers he received from attorneys general he helped elect.
As he awaits the nomination process, McConnell, of the Motley Rice firm in Providence, continues in his role as Rhode Island Democratic Party treasurer.
Had he been successful in carrying out the mammoth lead paint abatement plan he devised in 1999, and which fell apart last year, McConnell and other lawyers would have shared hundreds of millions in fees, maybe billions.
According to court records, the abatement plan would have bulldozed Rhode Island from end to end. State and federal housing laws and regulations that would forbid entering properties without warrants would have been suspended. . ..
The firm identifies him as negotiator and primary drafter of the master tobacco settlement agreement of 1998.
Whitehouse explained to reporters that the state wouldn't spend any money on lead abatement because Motley Rice had "a big war chest from the tobacco litigation," according to a report in the Providence Journal.
"McConnell brings horses in a big way," Whitehouse said. "He's part of a great firm with very deep pockets."
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