July 25, 2004

Republican Lawmakers Taking Money
from Trial Lawyers in Break from Past

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

The Texas Trial Lawyers Association has long been considered a quasi-extension of the Texas Democratic Party and a major stakeholder as well. TTLA and a handful of individual personal injury lawyers kept the state party in business financially and had a major voice in most of the critical decisions as a result.

But after sticking with the state party from the crest of its heyday through the depths of its decline, the marriage between the trials and the Democrats may now be on the rocks. There have been early signs of discord as the trial lawyer group's leaders have clashed with State Democratic Chairman Charles Soechting, who won the job in an emergency vote of the State Democratic Executive Committee last October. Soechting, a trial lawyer himself, took the job with a promise to shake up the status quo in an attempt to re-energize a party that's been on a losing streak in recent years.

But the trial lawyers association has decided that it's ready to quit doing business as usual as well. As a result, the group is breaking a longtime tradition and sharing its money with Republicans on the ballot after years of donating almost 100 percent of its political funds to Democrats. TTLA's newest report at the Texas Ethics Commission shows contributions to five Republicans who represent the GOP in the Texas House and one Republican state senator. The trials have given $5,000 to State Senator Craig Estes of Wichita Falls and another $4,000 to State Rep. Toby Goodman, an Arlington attorney and political moderate who might be more popular with Democrats than the House's Republican leadership. Two years ago, Goodman was the only Republican to accept a donation from the trial lawyers' association.

This year so far the the trials have contributed $2,500 to Mineola State Rep. Bryan Hughes, the only openly admitted personal injury lawyer among the House's 88 Republican members. TTLA has given $2,000 to State Rep. Ruben Hope, a Conroe attorney who also happens to chair the House Republican Caucus. State Rep. Pat Haggerty, an El Paso moderate who conservative colleagues view as a card-carrying RINO - Republican in Name Only - received $1,000 from TTLA this year. And State Rep. Charlie Howard, a Sugar Land lawmaker with solid conservative credentials, took $500 from the trial lawyers' group this year. Howard and Haggerty are both in the real estate business - not the profession of law.

The trial lawyers' organization has contributed to about two dozen Democatic incumbents and challengers this year. So 20 percent of the candidates it's backed since January have been members of the GOP.

Whether a political aberration or the start of a trend, the trial lawyer contributions to Republican incumbents have the potential to make GOP leaders as mad as Democrats might be. Some members of the House's Republican leadership team are already unhappy about the decision by the Texans for Lawsuit Reform to openly support a half-dozen Democrats who the GOP has been planning to target for defeat in conservative districts this fall. GOP loyalists had come to view TLR as an ally - and most Republicans realize they probably would not control the House if not for the millions of dollars and aggressive support that the lawsuit reform group has given them over the course of the past 10 years. But TLR has always billed itself as non-partisan - and the group would have a credibility problem if it opposed members of either party who'd supported tort reform. The GOP leadership might be more inclined to view the trial lawyer money to Republicans in a different light because it's coming from a group that's had a patently partisan alliance with the enemy's own state party. Unlike the Democrats who've received TLR donations, the Republicans getting trial lawyer cash didn't vote against the medical malpractice liability measure last year. That raises a couple of questions that might be sources of heartburn for GOP leaders - why is TTLA contributing funds to members who voted against its position? And why are those lawmakers willing to risk alienation from their own party when the donations themselves haven't been all that big?

The truth is that TTLA has been giving exclusively to Democrats until now because most Republican legislators and candidates wouldn't take its money for fear of retribution from their own party's leadership. GOP message strategists spent a good part of the past decade portraying the plaintiffs' bar as a symbol of everything wrong with the Democratic Party and why the party fell from favor with many Texas voters. Creative and relentless message techniques had the effect of making money earned off a big civil judgment appear to be contaminated in the eyes of voters who don't expect to ever win a big verdict but feel like health care and other costs have gone up as a result of those who do. So why are some Republicans suddenly willing to risk drawing the wrath of their own party leaders by taking contributions from lawyers who've made substantial sums off lawsuits and pumped much of that money into the Democratic Party's coffers?

The answer could be that some Republicans feel less threatened about showing independent streaks and straying from the fold. Maybe the Republicans that TTLA is supporting are really against tort reform. Or maybe they are simply taking the money because it was offered to them and have no plans to ever change their positions on the issue. Or perhaps they are rebelling against high-pressure tactics like some that have been employed on key votes in the lower chamber.

One way or another, the more money that Republicans take from trial lawyers, the more the GOP's ability to attack Democrats for doing the same will be diminished. The state GOP has rallied grassroots support for major tort reform legislation by shifting the focus from victims and juries to the lawyers who've made millions of dollars suing business. That becomes more difficult when the Republicans' own House caucus chair is supported by trial lawyers and several of his colleagues are as well.