Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spoke to Communications Workers of America convention delegates yesterday. Her remarks to the union activists coincided with what House leaders have deemed “Making it in America” week, promoting a strong manufacturing economy and employment.

Yet the Speaker used this opportunity to reiterate her support for the anti-democratic Employee Free Choice Act, which would lead to the destruction of 600,000 American jobs in the first year after its enactment. As the economic analysis of the legislation by the nonpartisan LEGC shows that for every 3 percentage points gained in union membership through card checks and mandatory arbitration will result in a 1 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate the following year. The Speaker predicted that the legislation would soon be “the law of the land.” Unfortunate.

Meanwhile the head of the Communications Workers of America, Larry Cohen, said, “[When] a majority of the Senate wants to take action, they can.” He added: “There is no hope of any meaningful restoration of private sector bargaining rights as long as we have these Senate rules.”

Mr. Cohen asserts that the only thing stopping this legislation is procedural hurdles in the upper chamber of the U.S. Senate. We respectively disagree. The only thing stopping this legislation is the legislation itself. Countless members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are united in opposition because the bill wouldn’t restore “private sector bargaining rights,” but would instead promote forced unionization, exacerbate labor-management conflict, rob the U.S. labor market of its dynamism and kill hundreds of thousands of American jobs. It appears that union leaders not only want to change labor laws in their favor but also overhaul longstanding Senate rules to pass their priority.

Union leaders’ strategy here is clear. If you don’t have a popular proposal, change the rules of the game.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi used her address to the “progressive” activists and bloggers at Netroots Nation in Las Vegas on Friday to promote House Democrats’ manufacturing agenda, “Make it in America.” Judging from the absence of coverage, neither the audience nor reporters seemed all that interested in that segment of her remarks.

The Washington Post story, “Pelosi calls for liberal activists to help keep Democrats in majority,” managed a paragraph:

Pelosi spoke about “Making It in America,” the Democrats’ manufacturing agenda that she said would roll out in coming weeks to help restore and create industrial jobs. “Jobs, jobs, jobs is very important, but we have to get it done,” Pelosi said. “People have to see the difference between what the Republicans want to do about this — nothing — and what we are advocating.”

The McClatchy story did not mention the manufacturing angle.

This isn’t a complaint about sparse coverage. Netroots Nation is populated by political activists and left-wing bloggers. To the convention attendees, as a whole, the more interesting topics are elections, campaigns and the perfidy of Fox News. The convention in Las Vegas was more about seeing the candidates and grousing about the Obama Administration’s passivity than economic policy.

Likewise, even though organized labor was a major funder of the event, there just didn’t seem to be all that much interest paid to the union agenda. The only extensive coverage of the remarks of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka came from the AFL-CIO blog, a post, “Trumka at Netroots Nation: New Industrial Policy for a Globalized World“:

Speaking as part of a panel on Building a Progressive Economic Vision, Trumka outlined the need for the the nation to invest in infrastructure, implement fair trade policies, change our tax policies, enact comprehensive immigration reform and reform our broken labor laws. The full panel included consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, progressive Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, Center for Community Change Executive Director Deepak Bhargava, Green for All’s Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and National People’s Action Executive Director George Goehl. (Watch it here.)

By “change our tax policies,” he means:

For those who say we can’t afford to make these investments, Trumka explained how we can do it with a financial speculation tax that encourages capital to invest in concrete things and discourages unproductive speculation or paper pushing for a quick buck, all the while raising more than $100 billion. Trumka made it clear that lawmakers must not reduce the federal deficit at the expense of creating jobs.

From what we know of the other speakers, Trumka probably represented the most economically conservative point of view on that panel, amazingly enough. Only $100 billion in new taxes to support manufacturing? Open borders for more immigration? Protectionism to wall off America from global competition? Think bigger, Trumka! Be more progressive!

Good online column from Hugh Hewitt, who sees the unintended but still damaging consequences of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act as persuasive grounds to fear expanded federal government control of health care. From “The CPSIA, The ESA, The CWA and Obamacare“:

What the CPSIA, the ESA and CWA all have in common is that the disastrous economic costs they are operating to exact from the private sector were not intended by the men and women who drafted them and were not foreseen by those who legislators who voted for them. Client after client arrives in our offices in various states of disbelief that Congress could have possibly intended the federal laws to operate in such destructive fashion.

The answer is always the same: Congress did not so intend, but activists, enthusiasts within bureaucracies, and the federal courts have all combined to take seemingly sensible efforts at apparently practical, small-step legislation and turn them all into regulatory behemoths with vast power to cripple or completely destroy private enterprise.

The Wall Street Journal also reached for historical comparisons — if a little further back in history — in its tough editorial today, “The Worst Bill Ever“:

Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi’s handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated.

That’s not bombast. The Journal cites specific economic catastrophes inherent in the bill, including the European levels of high taxation.

With Speaker Pelosi releasing the House Democratic version of legislation to expand the government’s control of health care — just 1990 pages — we note the letter from major employers group, including the National Association of Manufacturers, sent to the Hill on Monday. Excerpt:

[We] are writing at this critical time to once again convey that employers of all sizes and all industries believe that fundamental health reform is essential. Maintaining the status quo is both unacceptable and unsustainable. Employers clearly understand that unless we bring the nation’s health care costs under control, the current health system threatens jobs, our ability to compete at home and globally, and ultimately the core of our economy.

But not any health reform will do. We also must get the fundamentals of health reform right. Legislation that does not bend the cost curve for both public and private health plans is not accomplishing its goal and contradicts the strong bipartisan consensus that has driven the case for health care reform. Legislation limiting the flexibility and innovation in the private sector would erode parts of the system that are now working. And, legislation that creates a public health plan would inevitably shift costs onto the private sector, and would therefore fail to achieve the bipartisan goal of controlling overall health care costs.

Other signers of the letter: American Benefits Council, Corporate Health Care Coalition, The ERISA Industry Committee, U.S. Chamber of Commerce,  National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, National Coalition on Benefits, National Retail Federation, Retail Industry Leaders Association.

(Hat tip: Politico, with its story.)

Last week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used inflammatory language to attack the role of insurance companies in the health care debate, comments gained wide attention. From The Hill:

“They are the villains in this,” Pelosi said of private insurers. “They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening. And the public has to know that. They can disguise their arguments any way they want, but the fact is that they don’t want the competition.”

The comments have been well circulated, analyzed and deplored. Nothing to add on this end, other than to express the worry that if insurance companies — which perform an essential function in the U.S. economy — can be villified so readily, then maybe so can manufacturers.

We also note a cultural shift. It wasn’t so long ago that insurance companies were seen in, if not an heroic light, then at least a sympathetic one. One of the greatest of old time radio programs broadcast in the ’50s and early  ’60s was “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,” about the “fabulous” free-lance insurance investigator with the “action-packed expense account.” In its finest, mid-50s incarnation, the actor Bob Bailey protrayed Dollar as a sympathetic, smart, tough and yet rueful detective. He worked on commission, saving insurance companies thousands of dollars from fraudulent claims.

Back then, the villains were the criminals, scoundrels and frauds who cheated the insurance companies. So what happened?

P.S. Ed Walker broadcasts an episode of “Your Truly, Johnny Dollar” every Sunday on public radio here in D.C. You can also download the public domain episodes at Archive.org. The multipart episodes are the best.

USA Today’s lead page one story today is “Industry donates to drug plan foes” focusing on the pharmaceutical industry. The sidebar looks at a related issue of generic pharmaceuticals competing with “biologic” drugs, “Industry donates to drug plan foes.”

Meanwhile, at The Examiner, columnist Tim Carney submits yet another dispatch about big business running the country, “How industry kidnapped Obama’s health ‘reform’.”

Well, good. Report those stories. The same stories…over and over…ad nauseum…refreshing them every quarter when new lobbying or campaign contribution reports are out.

But maybe there’s a different and equally important story to tell. Yes, it’s the one we’ve been harping on for three weeks now, but it’s valid and woefully underreported: the role of the trial attorneys in blocking medical malpractice reform or federal liability limits.

To repeat ourselves (over and over), we’ve yet to see any major newspaper or wire service or broadcast outlet report on the gathering of thousands of trial lawyers in San Francisco at the American Association for Justice’s summer convention, which ends today. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a key player in the Congressional health care debate, addressed a powerful special interest and political constituency, and no mainstream media cared. (With apologies to LegalNewsline.) The peripatetic Tim Kaine lights down in San Francisco for political purposes and nada.

So here’s a new angle. On September 24-25 the AAJ is holding a seminar and Continuing Legal Education session at The Venetian in Las Vegas, “Litigating Toxic Tort, Pharmaceutical, and Medical Device Cases Seminar.” It’s two days in which attorneys will be trained how to make the U.S. health care system more expensive. And they get CLE credit for it!

Just consider the morning session, 8:30 a.m. to noon, as listed on the agenda, which includes sessions on the hot new topic of Chinese drywall, discovery in the post-Levine world — that is, the opportunity for more lawsuits against drugmakers in state instead of federal courts — and being prepared when lawyers try to dismiss personal injury suits because of statutes of limitation or assumed risk.

The two-day schedule also includes sessions on how to more effectively sue the manufacturers of drugs and devices.

The list of faculty is revealing too, including an attorney who sued pharmaceutical companies on behalf of the attorney general of West Virginia, and a university research fellow, litigator and former staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Indeed, there’s a list of 13 attorneys who, if they succeed in their efforts and inculcating the session’s students, will drive up the costs of health care in America.

There’s big money being spent, political influence being wielded, and our nation’s health care costs being driven through the roof while medical innovation is inhibited. So here’s a story idea: “Personal injury lawyers work to drive up health care costs.”

It’s a reasonable expection, that journalists covering the health care beat should apply the same kind of scrutiny to the plaintiffs’ bar as they do to the pharmaceutical, hospital and insurance industries. How about it, USA Today? Page one, above the fold…

Writing at Law.com’s Legal Blog Watch, Robert J. Ambrogi finds himself unimpressed with the American Association for Justice’s excuses for not opening its summer convention in San Francisco to the media. From “The AAJ’s Misguided Media Ban“:

Ray De Lorenzi, the AAJ’s associate director of communications, said the event was open only to members of the national plaintiff-lawyers’ group, according to Legal Newsline. “No media have ever been allowed at our conventions,” he said. “This is for members only.”

Unfortunately for Mr. De Lorenzi, it is simply not true to say that media have never been allowed at AAJ’s conventions. I can say that unequivocally because I attended a number of the organization’s conventions as a credentialed member of the news media and also arranged for other reporters at my publications to attend. On more than one occasion, I conducted face-to-face interviews with the association’s president during the annual convention, usually with the organization’s director of media relations sitting in, so I have no doubt they knew I was there.

Ambrogi suggests the AAJ is making a PR mistake by hiding itself away. Seems to us they’ve actually succeeded in their goals of controlling the message. Here are several stories and blog posts on health care lobbying:

• Washington Post, Daily Dose, July 21, “Lobbyists Spend Millions to Influence Health Care“
• CQ Politics, Trail Mix, July 21, “Here Come the Lobbyists“
• Salt Lake Tribune, July 27, “Industry lobbying intensifies alongside health reform debate“
• National Journal, Rules of the Game, July 27, “Health Care Industry Unleashing Big Money“

The lobbying efforts of the American Association for Justice are not mentioned once in any of these articles. Apparently if you’re the special interest of the plaintiffs’ bar, you can escape stories about health-care lobbying just by keeping your head down and banning reporters from the AAJ convention addresses of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi or Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman.

On July 17th we posted at the Point of Law blog a list of the health-care provisions the AAJ lobbied on in the second quarter of 2009 – a period in which the AAJ reported $1.15 million in lobbying expenditures. We’ll just cut and paste the list below. (continue reading…)

A salute to Chris Rizzo and LegalNewsline.com for asking the questions that the mainstream media could not be bothered with. It’s a relatively short story by a publication affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but at least someone noticed the fact that the person third in line to the presidency, a key figure in the nation’s health care debate, is speaking to a powerful political constituency opposed to reform.

From “Media barred from Pelosi speech“:

SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline)-When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addresssed the nation’s trial lawyers’ group Saturday, the media was barred from attending.

Ray De Lorenzi, associate director of communications for the American Association for Justice, said the event is exclusively for members of the national trial lawyers’ group.

“No media have ever been allowed at our conventions,” he told Legal Newsline. “This is for members only.”

Pelosi, a California Democrat, is speaking at the American Association for Justice’s annual convention in San Francisco, which has drawn hundreds of plaintiffs’ attorneys.

When asked to speak to a Pelosi staffer at the event, De Lorenzi explained that it is AAJ — not the congresswoman’s office — that controls access to convention events.

Trade associations are within their rights to restrict their events to members for many reasons: The desire to have an open, honest discussion, to limit the disruption that would come media coverage; you can even argue freedom of association. (Last year in Philadelphia, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer made several politically damaging remarks in his bumptious speech to the lawyers.)

Still, you have to think that if Speaker Pelosi has told the AAJ she wanted her speech open to the public, it would have been. Or the AAJ could have made a recording available.

And the biggest question remains one directed to the mainstream media: Here’s is a powerful political force, the trial lawyers, and a key political constituency and campaign contributor to people who are writing health care legislation to restructure a sixth of the U.S. economy. So why aren’t you interested?

More from LegalNewsLine, “Nation’s trial lawyers converge on San Francisco.” And Shopfloor.org posts on the convention.

• Today’s Washington Post, page A19, a story on the Speaker of the House and health care legislation, “Pelosi Puts Onus on Industry,” with the subhed, “Deals Aside, She Says, Hospital and Drug Firms Can Do More.”

• From the American Association for Justice’s summer convention brochure, the schedule for Saturday, July 25:

• On page 16, American Association for Justice’s 2nd Quarter 2009 House lobbying disclosure report, a list of the health care provisions and legislation the AAJ lobbied on. The disclosure category is “torts,” and the unifying theme is the trial lawyers’ opposition to any limits on legal liability.

Our point, which we’ve made before, is that the influence of the American Association for Justice, trial lawyers and their campaign contributions has escaped the journalistic examination given to industries like pharmaceuticals, hospitals and doctors.

As has the fact that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a pivotal figure in Congress’ health care debate, is speaking Saturday to thousands of the litigation industry’s members. Indeed, the AAJ convention in San Francisco features other prominent elected officials, including House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (speaking at a PAC fundraising event) and DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia. These people will shape any health care law that Congress enacts, and they’re speaking in front of thousands of lawyers with a pecuniary interest in the outcome. But, so far….next to nothing.

It’s a conspicuous oversight by the media and a gaping hole in the national debate over whether to restructure the U.S. health care system.

Victor Schwartz and Chris Appel of the law firm Shook,  Hardy & Bacon — with whom the NAM often works –have a new paper out via the Washington Legal Foundation detailing all the sub-rosa, quiet and sneaky places that members of Congress have written legislation to expand the opportunities for suing people. The method is to turn state attorneys general into ad hoc arms of enforcement for federal law.

The bill writing is done by the allies of the American Association for Justice, the trial lawyer lobby, who sees the legislative approach as supporting their cash-seeking litigation.

From “The Plaintiffs’ Bar’s Covert Effort To Expand State Attorney General Federal Enforcement Power“:

What do the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, climate change legislation, the Data Accountability and Trust Act, the Federal Trade Commission Reauthorization Act, and the economic stimulus package have in common?  If you find yourself struggling for a satisfactory response, you are likely not alone.  The common thread is quietly buried in legislation with a far broader agenda in mind.  But embedded in each of these bills, and dozens of others, is a specific enforcement provision that allows a federal lawsuit to be initiated by a state’s attorney general.

On the surface, this expansion of a state executive branch’s enforcement authority may appear inconsequential, a mere technical fix to ensure proper enforcement.  The reality underlying such provisions, however, is not so immaterial, and the provision’s appearance in federal legislation not quite so random.  Rather, the insertion of state attorney general enforcement provisions in select federal legislation is part of a coordinated effort by the organized plaintiffs’ bar to expand the power of these state law enforcement officers.  The American Association for Justice (AAJ) (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) and other groups that follow their lead have spent millions of dollars lobbying to modify federal legislation, including those provisions relating to state attorney general enforcement.

The payoff from the perspective of the AAJ and other groups is, like the answer to the initial question posed in this Legal Backgrounder, not immediately apparent.  After all, it would seem that the state attorney general’s office is unrelated to the practices and influences of personal injury trial lawyers.  In fact, the ties run so deep that it has become a viable profit-seeking activity for the AAJ and others to work directly to improve the power and autonomy of the state attorney general so that their members may join in expansive state-sponsored litigation.

This is a very important backgrounder on a strategy used by a powerful special interest aligned with members of Congress working to make the United States more litigious and less competitive.

Indeed, the legislation/litigation connection is woefully underreported in the mainstream media. We have seen no newspaper or broadcast story that reports the American Association for Justice’s guest speakers at their San Francisco convention, which include Tim Kaine, Democratic National Committee chairman and Governor of Virginia; Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi; Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and key author of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act; and Sen. Barbara Boxer, the nemesis of BPA and global warming. We reported it at Point of Law and then here at Shopfloor.org. Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot has noted the appearance of the peripatetic Tim Kaine in San Francisco, but that’s it.

Congressional and political party leaders hanging out and raising money with trial lawyers in San Francisco. Now why isn’t that a big story?