The feeding frenzy has begun in Washington, as corporate lobbies line up to collect their payoff for helping Republicans retain control of the White House and both houses of Congress. The first legislation that George Bush signed into law this year was literal class action legislation. It limits the ability of consumers to hold corporations accountable for fraud and deception by bringing class actions against them.
The law transfers most large class action lawsuits against companies from state to federal courts. With federal courts already overburdened, this ensures waiting periods of years before cases move forward. Worse, overburdened federal judges often refuse to certify a class on procedural grounds, effectively giving companies a blank check for deception. Joan Claybrook, head of the consumer group Public Citizen, warned that yesterday’s action “has given banks, credit card companies, insurers, HMOs, drug manufacturers and other big corporations a green light to defraud and deceive consumers without fear of being held accountable.”
Who wins in this legislation? A clue might be that corporations spent literally tens of millions of dollars and unleashed over 475 lobbyists to push the legislation. And that’s over and above the hundreds of millions going into the campaign coffers of the president and the Republican majority. And the legislation was opposed by the AARP, the disabilities community, the AFL-CIO, the Consumer’s Federation of America, the American Association of University Women and virtually every public interest group concerned about consumers or the environment.
Who wins? Wal-Mart wins. It was held liable in a $50 million settlement of a Colorado class action for forcing workers to work off the clock n to work without getting paid. Four federal courts had refused to certify a class action on forced labor, but Colorado courts accepted it. If this bill had been in effect, Wal-Mart’s abuse of its workers likely would have continued without remedy.
Studies show that federal judges reject class action suits about twice as much as state courts. Supporters of the bill defeated amendments designed to insure that those defrauded by companies like Enron and Wal-Mart get their day in court. The failure of the amendments, said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), showed that “the fix is in” and that the Senate has been “reduced to taking its marching orders on major legislation from corporate special interests and … allies in the White House.”
Just like Iraq and Social Security, the bill was hawked with deceptions and distortions. The president railed against “junk lawsuits,” which are far less of a problem than corporate frauds that go unchecked. The business lobby campaigned against rapacious trial lawyers, but in fact, lawyers do better in federal courts than state courts. Incredibly, the Chamber of Commerce claimed to be concerned about consumers, but that didn’t even pass the laugh test.
No one is surprised that the Republican Congress and the Bush White House cater to corporate interests. That’s what they do. Republican House Majority leader Tom “the Hammer” DeLay is notorious for allowing corporate lobbyists to write legislation, so long as they pay at the door. He’s already been rebuked three times for financial corruptions by the normally lax House Ethics Committee.
Democrats, however, ought to expose and oppose this shameless sellout of the common good. Whatever the members’ differences on social issues or national security, surely Democrats should unite around basic bread and butter concerns. Even with Bush stumping the nation and the business lobby spending millions peddling distortions, Democrats should stand together to represent the consumers, the small investors, the seniors, the minorities, the non-union workers who are victimized by credit card frauds, bank gouging, HMO misbilling, Enron deceptions and more.
The Democratic leaders in the House and Senate n Pelosi and Reid n opposed the bill. But the bills passed the Senate and the House easily, as a lot of Democrats went with the money, turning their back on their own voters. Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska, hailed the vote as “an example,” a “template” of bipartisan cooperation. But bipartisan cooperation to reward the corporate lobby and gouge the consumer isn’t new or “exemplary.” It is the reason so many people think that Democrats stand for nothing.
Bush and his corporate allies are going for it all n more tax cuts, more deregulation, more limits on lawsuits, privatization of Social Security, vouchers for Medicare, cuts in public education, payoffs to big oil and the drug companies, and more. The only thing that will stop this is a massive public mobilization to counter the special interests and the high rent lobbyists. Democrats will either help fan that fire, or feel its heat for failing to do so.