An eleventh-hour power play

By Staff
Nov. 24, 2002
House Speaker Tim Ford last week expressed a sense of frustration certainly shared by most of his colleagues over the inability of conferees to deal effectively with general business liability reforms.
On Friday, while indicating that work continues on specific language that is holding up a compromise, Ford sent House members home. They will reconvene Monday.
But, today, rank-and-file legislators do not know whether they will have anything to vote on this week. It's beginning to look like a compromise on an "innocent seller" issue is just beyond the reach of the six lawmakers in whose hands the matter rests.
The current argument is over an amendment designed to protect business owners who are sued for selling defective products they did not design or manufacture. As one newspaper put it, a man in Mississippi who injures himself with a defective drill made in Texas can sue the local hardware store that sold it to him. Under the amendment, the store could ask a judge to be dismissed from that claim up to 180 days after the briefs are filed.
House conferees all of whom supported the same "innocent seller" language when it cleared their chamber now have a major problem with this language. It's just the latest in a series of stall tactics favored by the trial lawyers lobby to water down business liability reform.
At the very least, it is disingenuous now for House conferees to desert their own colleagues. This appears to be another eleventh-hour, desperate power play by House conferees to protect the trial lawyer lobby at the expense of common sense.
Politically, the side represented by House conferees lost on medical malpractice reform, it lost on election day 2002 and now stands to lose even more by destroying the small measure of respect that may still exist. No wonder rank-and-file House members are frustrated.
So are voters.
Many contentious issues have been resolved in this special legislative session, but nothing conferees have done so far on general business liability reforms will be worth a hoot unless they can clear this latest hurdle.
We applaud Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck for appointing Senate conferees who have exercised good sense and judgment throughout these negotiations. Now, ironically, in some ways they are carrying the House's water, too.