As Economy Sours, Bush Takes It Out on Lawyers

President Bush doesn’t care much for lawyers, and it shows.

Even when talking about the war on terrorism, he finds a way to bash them, although cloaking his contempt in humor. Such barbs occasionally baffle his audiences, but usually elicit guffaws all around.

The bad blood between Bush and trial lawyers is neither a mystery nor a laughing matter. Such attorneys make their living suing big businesses, which tend to be cozy with the GOP; and many of them donate tons of their earnings to Democratic candidates.

Bush’s hostility is a primary reason behind the holdup in Congress of some key legislation, including a patients’ bill of rights and a terrorism insurance measure. The president’s antagonism toward the plaintiffs’ bar, and his efforts to restrict litigation, have surfaced in an array of issues.

Now Bush is exploiting trial lawyers in an effort to inoculate himself from voter displeasure with the sluggish economy and corporate corruption.

Leading up to the economic forum he is hosting Tuesday in nearby Waco, Texas, Bush has been furiously plugging the notion that restrictions on lawsuits would be a sure-fire tonic for an ailing economy.

Whatever economists think of that argument, it certainly has political resonance. “It’s tough to defend business these days, but it’s still profitable to attack trial lawyers,” said Larry J. Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist.

Lashing out at trial lawyers may come as second nature to Bush, a University of Texas Law School reject before he enrolled at the Harvard Graduate School of Business.

As Texas governor, he waged a titanic and ultimately successful crusade for tort reform, backed by business moguls such as former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth L. Lay. Along the way, Bush and fellow Republicans collected millions of dollars in contributions from corporate interests that have a stake in seeing limits imposed on trial lawyers.

White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, who also worked on Bush’s gubernatorial staff, said his boss’ views toward the plaintiffs’ bar were shaped by his years in Austin, Texas.

“The judicial system and the civil system were completely out of whack. It was rigged against the common taxpayer, who was trying to run a business, meet payroll and provide for his family,” Bartlett said.

“This is something he understands and feels strongly about.”

Bush may have inherited some of his dislike of lawyers from his father. The 41st president railed against the plaintiffs’ bar on national TV during his 1992 acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, describing them as “sharp lawyers” in tasseled loafers “running wild.”

Such attacks are nothing more than a “Trojan horse,” said Linda Lipsen, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Assn. of Trial Lawyers of America.

“Attacking trial lawyers is good for fund-raising. Bush is raising money from corporations that put products out there that roll over and tires that explode--corporations that don’t want to be regulated by Congress or the courts,” she said.

Among the proposals stalled in Congress is a terrorism insurance bill that would provide government assistance in insuring against major loss from terrorist attacks.

Hit with huge claims after the Sept. 11 attacks, insurers are refusing to issue policies covering catastrophic events. This has caused developers to delay large commercial real estate projects until they can get government help in paying sky-high insurance rates.

Republicans and Democrats agree on the need for such a bill, but it has stalled because Republicans insist on imposing limits on lawsuits and punitive damages.

The stalemate, Bush said in Madison, Miss., on Wednesday, is costing the nation billions of dollars worth of job-rich construction projects.

“We need to get a terrorism insurance bill that will provide some surety so that these commercial projects can go forward, so that our construction workers will be back to work,” the president said.

But the bill must not “provide a gravy train for personal injury lawyers,” he said in May at a GOP fund-raiser in Columbus, Ohio.

More recently, the president denounced trial lawyers for what he called an “explosion” in medical malpractice litigation.

“Junk and frivolous lawsuits can ruin an honest business,” Bush said, adding that such litigation is a major reason behind the rising cost of health care.

The popular patients’ bill of rights, designed to empower consumers by imposing new standards for health insurers and HMOs, also has foundered because of disagreements over the rights of patients to sue and over caps on damages for serious injuries.

Party differences over the role of trial lawyers also have figured in other matters.

The corporate responsibility measure was slowed in part because of a squabble over how much time consumers and investors should have to sue a company and its officers.

Despite his strongly held view, Bush signed a bill that doubled, to two years, the time during which such lawsuits may be filed--a reflection of his determination to avoid being tainted by the corporate scandals.

Another issue that has raised hackles at the White House centers on how much senior officials might have known before Sept. 11 about an impending terrorist attack.

Some trial lawyers contend that the existence of government warnings supports claims of negligence brought against the airlines whose jets were hijacked.

At Bush’s insistence, even the now-enacted education reform bill, one of his top priorities, included a “teacher protection” clause to limit lawsuits.

“It says that teachers and principals and school board members can take reasonable actions to maintain order and discipline in the classroom without the fear of being sued,” the president said May 8 at a Milwaukee high school.

“And that’s good law--I don’t like it when frivolous lawsuits disrupt quality education.”

Bush also has taken his fight with lawyers beyond the plaintiffs’ bar.

Shortly after he took office, the White House eliminated the American Bar Assn.’s semi-official role in the vetting of potential candidates for the federal bench, arguing that the ABA was biased against conservative judges.

For his part, the president seems content to press his case against the profession by using a touch of humor.

In his favorite riff, Bush cites the Sept. 11 hijackers, and then adds as he did at a GOP fund-raiser last month in Washington:

“They must have thought we were so soft, and so materialistic and so self-absorbed that all we would do is call our favorite plaintiff’s attorney and file a few lawsuits.”