As he campaigns for President, George W. Bush often
cites the new tort laws he insituted in Texas as a major
part of his record as "a reformer who gets results." But
as reported February 10 in the Washington Post,
it appears these reforms have been far less of a success
for Texas consumers than Bush's rhetoric suggests.
Bush's first priority as Governor of Texas was tort
"reform," which "excited" the business community. The
state's two leading tort "reform" groups and their
members gave Bush (who, before his election, was on the
board of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a
right-wing think tank opposing "lawsuit abuse") more
than $4 million--10.6 percent of all contributions to
his two gubernatorial campaigns.
Bush's proposals to curtail "the junk lawsuits that
clog our courts" were enacted by an already sympathetic
Legislature and included: caps on--and increased
standards of proof for--punitive damages, elimination of
joint and several liability, limitations on medical
malpractice liability, and a narrowed definition of
gross negligence.
University of Wisconsin law professor Marc Galanter
said what Bush called a "litigation explosion" was
nonexistent. The former head of the Attorney General's
consumer protection division said Bush and the
Legislature emasculated the Deceptive Trade Practices
Act and made it useless.
Experts Birny Birnbaum, former chief economist in the
Texas Insurance Department and now chief economist for
the Center for Economic Justice, and J. Robert Hunter,
former Texas Insurance Commissioner who is now director
of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America,
said Bush's claims of billions of dollars in saving for
consumers as a result of tort "reform" are false.
Birnbaum said, "Consumers haven't been benefitting. The
insurance companies have. They've raked in billions of
dollars in excess profits since the 'reforms' were
passed....There is no way the governor's numbers can be
substantiated."
A study
Hunter recently completed proves insurance company
profits for all types of liability coverage are
"escalating much faster than any savings being passed on
to consumers" and that companies have offset ordered
rate rollbacks "by simply raising rates at other times
of the year." Both noted insurance premiums in Texas are
higher today than before tort "reform." Bush has
collected more than $2.1 million from insurance
executives and companies in his gubernatorial and
presidential races.
In a major policy speech in South Carolina on
February 9, Bush bragged about his Texas tort "reform"
efforts and said that, as President, he would seek
similar federal legislation, including: barring from
federal courts for three years plaintiff lawyers who
file three "frivolous" lawsuits; federalizing class
actions; ending "shopping" for favorable state courts;
and forcing losing lawyers who reject "reasonable
settlements" to pay their opponents' legal fees.
