Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

Why Business Didn't Open Its Checkbooks for Bush This Year

One important reason that business did not open its checkbooks for Bush was that Bush and company decided last summer that they would rather have class action lawsuits as an issue than a class action reform:

National Journal's CongressDaily: Judiciary - Carper Almost 'Unglued' By Defeat Of Class Action Measure: Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., told business executives today that the Senate's GOP majority was to blame for the collapse of a compromise bill to overhaul the rules for class action lawsuits. He said election-year maneuvering spelled the end of a bill he co-sponsored and was supported by business interests. "You all are too smart to be played like this," Carper said during a legal summit at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Carper said he was "bewildered" that GOP leaders failed to move the bill through the Senate, even though 63 senators pledged their support for the legislation. "Any time you've got that kind of majority ... and you can't bet a bill passed, boy, that's just bizarre," Carper said.

Deliberations on the bill fell apart in July, after Majority Leader Frist tried to bar senators from offering unrelated amendments on all issues except the minimum wage. Frist needed at least 60 votes to block a filibuster by invoking cloture on his procedural motion. But Carper and most other Democratic co-sponsors of the bill joined with their Democratic colleagues and a few Republicans to reject cloture on a 44-43 vote. Republican and Democratic leaders have blamed each other for the bill's demise. GOP leaders argued that Frist had tried to prevent Democratic opponents of the bill from killing it by attaching unrelated, politically motivated amendments. But Democrats said Frist guaranteed the bill's failure by denying them an opportunity to be heard on their priority issues.

Carper said he was stunned by Frist's attempt to limit nongermane amendments and "fill the amendment tree" by allowing an unlimited number of germane riders. "When he did that, I literally ran -- I sprinted from my office in Hart -- to the Capitol, and I said, 'What are you doing?'" Carper recalled. "[Senate Judiciary Chairman] Orrin Hatch was standing right next to him and said, 'Democrats didn't want to do this [bill] anyway.' I almost came unglued. I said, 'I want this bill a lot more than you do, buddy.'"

Carper said a Republican colleague, whom he did not name, later told him privately that some Senate Republicans did not want "guys like [Carper], who worked out this compromise, getting credit for what they'd done." Carper said that senator also told him the expectation that Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., -- a trial lawyer -- would become the Democratic vice presidential nominee factored into the bill's demise. He recalled his colleague telling him, "If this issue is resolved, and if asbestos [legislation] is resolved, frankly it's harder to pan [Edwards] and the Democrats for being in the pockets of class action attorneys." Carper said he will continue pushing for class action bill. He predicted that several retiring Senate Democrats who had opposed the bill will be replaced with "centrist" Democrats who would be "more open minded with respect
to these issues." -- by Molly M. Peterson

There are two lessons: for Republicans, that bad policies produce blowback. For businesses, every business interested in a fix for the asbestos or for reform of class-action lawsuits should be aware that the Republicans have taken their support and stiffed them--that people like Hatch and Frist are simply not trustworthy, and should not be in leadership positions in the Senate.