Stop Blaming The Trial Lawyers… We Are On Your Side.
January 17, 2010
Call for tort reform obscures the real issue» Evansville Courier & Press
I am tired of scapegoating lawyers in general, and trial lawyers in particular, and it is one reason why I now call myself a Reagan conservative rather than a Republican.
Health care now absorbs almost 20 percent of our gross domestic product, which creates a hidden and growing tax on the American consumer. However, the best that the Republican Party and other conservative groups can do is to promote tort reform as its principal response to the health care dilemma.
On the one hand, conservative groups bemoan national solutions to state, economic or business problems, and yet do not comprehend that national legislation to control state courts is anathema to the Constitution. It violates the Constitutional principle that rights not granted to the federal government have been reserved to the states, and it undermines the concept of federalism.
So-called “tort reform” will usurp the legal rights of citizens when access to the courts provides the only means of redress against a large and malevolent federal government and powerful business interests.
