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Thu 8 Jul, 2004 07:34 am
Posted 7/6/2004 11:11 PM Updated 7/7/2004 6:09 PM
Lawyers have been big source of Edwards' campaign funds
By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — John Edwards' relatively brief political career has been financed to an unusual degree by money from his fellow plaintiffs' attorneys.
Since he ran for the U.S. Senate from North Carolina in 1998, Edwards has raised $46 million to finance his campaigns. About 45% of that money has come from lawyers, including $6.1 million he gave his own Senate campaign.
Such heavy reliance on a single source of political money is bound to become an issue in the campaign and make Edwards a target of physicians and business executives who have been sued.
President Bush has made courtroom lawyers a leading political enemy, dating to his days as Texas governor when he sought to limit awards in tort cases and blamed lawyers for high insurance costs.
Several prominent law firms have bundled large numbers of contributions to Edwards' Senate and presidential campaigns and to New American Optimists, a political action committee Edwards set up to help other Democrats and further his own career.
• Girardi & Keese gave $387,875 to help Edwards. The firm is famous for representing a small California town in a suit against Pacific Gas & Electric, a case that was the basis for the Julia Roberts movie Erin Brockovich.
• Baron & Budd, a Dallas firm, has given $296,650 to Edwards since he went into politics. Partner Fred Baron, who raised money nationally for Edwards' presidential bid, is a former president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, which lobbies on behalf of plaintiffs' lawyers.
Within days after Edwards dropped out of the presidential race, he invited Baron and 150 of his top fundraisers to a reception in Washington, and arranged for the survivor of the primaries, Sen. John Kerry, to woo the crowd to raise money for his campaign.
• The Ness, Motley law firm gave $250,600 to Edwards. The firm — now called Motley, Rice — was heavily involved in litigation against tobacco companies that led to a $246 billion settlement with the states. The firm also let Edwards use its business jet.
In all, 16 of the top 20 career sources for Edwards' campaign money are law firms, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that studies money in politics. But the largest single donor to Edwards is not a lawyer; he is Stephen Bing, who runs Shangri-La Entertainment, a California movie studio. He gave $905,000 to New American Optimists in 2002, before large "soft money" donations were banned.
Edwards himself built a personal fortune on representing people injured by defective products or medical malpractice. He won his first million-dollar verdict while working for a North Carolina law firm, and in 1993, he started his own firm with a college classmate.
"He devoted a great deal of time to taking on extraordinarily difficult cases," said Jack Fleer, a political scientist at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. "Those kinds of cases tend to go out on a limb ... and it enabled him to build a fortune."
Edwards' biggest case was representing Valerie Lakey, a 5-year-old girl who was severely injured when she sat on an uncovered swimming pool drain. Researching the case, he found other children had been injured similarly, and he successfully implored the jury to punish the drain company.
During the 1990s, Edwards tried dozens of major cases that brought in millions of dollars for his clients and earned him a reputation as a feared litigator.
It also earned him significant personal wealth. Edwards' 2003 financial disclosure shows his net worth is at least $12 million and perhaps as high as $34 million, mostly in stocks and North Carolina local government bonds.
PERSONAL FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE
The annual personal financial disclosure Sen. John Edwards filed May 17 puts the net worth of Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, in the range of $12 million to $34 million. Most of his assets are investments in stocks and North Carolina local government bonds. Among Edwards' top holdings, as of Dec. 31, 2003:
American EuroPacific Growth Fund $1 million to $5 million
Atlantic Trust Equity Income Fund $1 million to $5 million
Atlantic Trust Mid-cap Growth Fund $1 million to $5 million
Building in Raleigh, N.C. $500,000 to $1 million
Cash, Wachovia Bank account $250,000 to $500,000
American Growth Fund $250,000 to $500,000
North Carolina Infrastructure Financing Corp. bonds $250,000 to $500,000
University of North Carolina-Asheville bonds $250,000 to $500,000
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill bonds $250,000 to $500,000
Source: U.S. Senate personal financial disclosure reports
And your point is....?
He sounds like he was a darn good lawyer. I can't wait to see him in a debate against Cheney.
So, if Cheney is in fact the GOP vice-presidiential candidate, we'll have two lawyers going against two businessmen. So, if all other things are equal, who do you want leading the country? Lawyers, even personal injury attorneys? Or businessmen?
Foxfyre wrote: So, if all other things are equal, who do you want leading the country? Lawyers, even personal injury attorneys? Or businessmen?
The majority of the people in the three branches of government are lawyers. In the Supreme Court all of them are. So do we want lawyers to be leading the country is not really an issue, they are...like it or not.
They are running the country, not leading the country. The president leads, the rest run the place.
... and the vast majority of past Presidents were lawyers. I don't see what the big deal is.
Foxfyre wrote:So, if all other things are equal, who do you want leading the country? Lawyers, even personal injury attorneys? Or businessmen?
Bush and Cheney aren't just "businessmen". Their corrupt businessmen. That makes a big difference to me (and to many others). The choices they've made with Halliburton, Enron, etc leave a really nasty taste in my mouth. I'll take the lawyers, thankyouverymuch!
Halliburton is quite a success story and the connection with Enron is a non-entity.
I don't think we need ambulance chasers running the country.
IMO, because the state governments and Congress have a majority of lawyers--not just lawyers but TRIAL lawyers--running things, the U.S. is the most stupidly litigious country on earth. There is no way tax laws or corporate laws or trade laws or tort law will be designed to benefit anyone other than lawyers so long as lawyers hold a strangle hold on the process.
This is going to be fun!
Edwards career in law has been fully vetted during his Senate campaign. He was no ambulance chaser. Note the paragraph you posted about the little girl who was caught in the pool filter.
The fact that he found other victims potentially kept further kids from being hurt. Lawyers can be heroes.
Quote:
Edwards himself built a personal fortune on representing people injured by defective products or medical malpractice. He won his first million-dollar verdict while working for a North Carolina law firm, and in 1993, he started his own firm with a college classmate.
"He devoted a great deal of time to taking on extraordinarily difficult cases," said Jack Fleer, a political scientist at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. "Those kinds of cases tend to go out on a limb ... and it enabled him to build a fortune."
Edwards' biggest case was representing Valerie Lakey, a 5-year-old girl who was severely injured when she sat on an uncovered swimming pool drain. Researching the case, he found other children had been injured similarly, and he successfully implored the jury to punish the drain company.
For what it's worth, it appears that Edwards was a businessman too.
Silly conservatives. You keep highlighting the strengths of the people you are running against-- which reminds me, we haven't talked about Kerry's war medals in a while...
You always wonder, however, how heroic it is to 'help people' by taking millions of the amounts awarded. I haven't read any of the transcripts in the pool case so I do not know the particulars. I know from personal experience that all pool drains are dangerous unless properly covered--there was at least one case where a child was completely disemboweled by one. Was the fault with the pool drain company? Or with the pool owners who didn't properly cover the drains?
Did the lawyer go after the negligent ones? Or the ones with the deepest pockets?
I don't know what the circumstances were in the pool drain case cited here. I do know that personal injury attorneys usually look for the deep pockets with little concern for punishing the guilty.
Quote:the connection with Enron is a non-entity.
You're kidding, right?
I'll take lawyers over oil men any day of the week.
"here they go again"
I knew this was coming.
I say for our side, ignore it; its stupid.
This whole trial lawyer attack is just another desperate attempt to find something, anything that may stick.
This won't.
Know why?
Because it makes Bush-FUCheney appear as if they think
corporate lawyers are somehow better, less well-paid, and more compassionate.
I gotta tell ya, I'm LMAO at the GOP searching for a clue in this contest.
Thye're finally beginning to smell the coffee, and they are
scared to death.
Did anyone see Ridge today announcing the new nebulous terrorist warning?
That's not going to help their poll numbers either. People are seeing through that five-color charade.
I sure hope nothing explodes between now and Election Day, else the Republicans will try to spin it as a success to their efforts to keep us all safe...
It's amazing. One month the liberals are damning Bush/Cheney and anybody associated with them for not taking terrorism seriously and being negligent about being diligent.
Now they are being condemned for taking it seriously.
Sure hard to make some of you people happy.
[quote="Foxfyre"
Now they are being condemned for taking it seriously. [/quote]
The point is they are not taking it seriously, they are manipulating it for political advantage.
Tom Ridge announcing that Al Quaeda wants to attack America isn't 'taking terrorism seriously.'
I mean, what does his announcement DO? I mean, besides scare people. Tell me, seriously, what his announcing that accomplishes.
I also like the fact that no new real hard facts are ever released - just vague warnings that Al Quaeda wants to attack 'sometime soon' 'somewhere in America.' You think?
To me, it looks much more like a 'progress report' that is being given out to justify the massive expense of the OHS. Sort of a 'well, we can't tell you who will attack, or where, or when exactly, just that we think someone will soon. So, uh, watch out.'
Cycloptichorn
So why didn't we change the color alert from Bert to Ernie, Foxy?
The very first question Ridge was asked was, do you have any specific threats?
"Nooo...."
What do you think they will say if something should blow up, or be destroyed?
"We didn't have any specific threat...."
This **** is worse than a bad joke.
Time for them all to go.
McGentrix wrote:Halliburton is quite a success story and the connection with Enron is a non-entity.
I don't think we need ambulance chasers running the country.
So all lawyers are ambulance chasers when it suits your purpose to display them in that light? What a maroon...
How do you know they aren't taking it seriously Acquiunk? You have some inside information that the rest of us don't have? Or is that just what you choose to believe?
And Cyclop what are they to do. They were seriously criticized for presumably 'ignoring' previous warnings because 'everybody knew Al Qaida hated us' and which do you pick out of the pile to take seriously? So now if they don't announce the threats as threats when they come in, they will be accused again of 'not taking it seriously'. If they do announce it, they are accused of 'pandering'.
Will you guys admit you hate this administration and therefore no matter what they do, you will see it as wrong? I will admit many on my side saw the Clinton administration exactly that way. No matter what they did, it would either be wrong or have some kind of hidden agenda.
For me, I would rather know than not know. I would rather know of the possibilities than be blind sided. And I would prefer to give credit where credit is due and criticism where it is warranted no matter who is in charge.
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