That priority is liability protection for doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel battling the disease that has thus far killed more than 58,000 Americans.
“Imagine you are a businessman thinking about reopening, and you’ve heard that the trial lawyers all over the country are sharpening their pencils getting ready to sue you, claiming that you didn’t engage in proper distancing or other issues related to health and safety,” he said.
Republicans have argued for years that trial lawyers use the threat of lawsuits to force big corporations, doctors, and small businesses to settle malpractice and consumer “tort” liability cases out of court to avoid jury trials that often produce costly judgments for plaintiffs and enrich their opportunistic attorneys.
Those same attorneys are among Democrats’ most reliable and lucrative sources of campaign funding and other less-obvious forms of assistance.
Temperature Rising on Capitol Hill
While congressional and campaign strategists interviewed by The Epoch Times on April 30 agreed the heat is rising on Capitol Hill, they are less sanguine about a possible deal.“This will put the Democrats in a box because they will look like they are defending the trial lawyers over medical heroes if they demand McConnell remove a liability shield provision from the bill,” Darling said.
“However, given the importance of the trial lawyer lobby to the Democrats’ fundraising, don’t expect them to roll over quickly. Every trial lawyer in America is picking out a second beach house right now, so expect them to throw all they’ve got at this fight.”
South Carolina-based Democratic strategist Jimmy Williams scoffed, however, saying “Republican attacks on the trial bar are as old as Donald Trump’s hair color. Everyone hates trial lawyers until they need one.”
Williams, a former senior economic adviser to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), said Democrats “hold the upper hand and should hold out because this virus is going nowhere fast and the GOP controls half the legislative branch and the entire executive branch. They’re responsible for running the country.”
Asked about a potential deal, Jim Manley, former communications director to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said he doubted it, “since if McConnell tries to hold up aid to state and local governments, he will lose a good portion of his own caucus.”
Manley also predicted that “this liability issue is going to greatly complicate the upcoming negotiations, and there is a decent chance that it will grind things to a halt.”
Veteran tax activist Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), said, “Trial lawyers, more than any other political machine, can trash the U.S. economy, leaving it weak going into the 2020 election.”
Then, Norquist said, they will “finance the Democratic Party blaming Trump for the lousy economy ensured by their own action. The Democrats will never agree to any meaningful limits on trial lawyer predation.”
Darling predicted “far more partisan fights ... because both parties recognize [coronavirus relief] might be the last prominent piece of legislation to pass before the November elections.”