Word: reformer
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Even as he tries to push forward with his grand vision of democratic reform, a malign undertow draws Wahid back into the corrupt old ways of Suharto and his cronies. Financial scandals have been creeping closer to his inner circle. Now his former masseur is being investigated for allegedly embezzling $4.7 million from the state rice-distribution agency...
...part by the executives who are often defendants in personal-injury lawsuits, promises to be "a President who is tough enough to take on the trial bar." Al Gore and the Democratic Party, who collect big contributions from trial lawyers, supported President Clinton's veto of a 1996 tort-reform bill backed by business interests. Advocacy groups are already running dueling TV ads. One suggests that lawmakers who would limit damages in lawsuits are out to deny victims of asbestos-related illnesses their just compensation, while another depicts trial lawyers as sharks in a feeding frenzy...
Trial lawyers insist that the role they play is a vital one. The ability to sue for injuries is a basic American right, they say, one that supporters of tort reform are scheming to take away. "[Tort reform] is no more than a code to close the courthouse down to poor and middle-class people," says Jamail. "You don't see these corporations being tentative or bashful about running to the courthouse against each other or against individuals who don't pay their bills...
Critics offer a solution: tort reform. They have been pushing for years for restrictions that would make it harder for trial lawyers to collect large punitive-damage awards, which often far exceed the actual damages. Forty-five states have enacted civil-justice-reforms laws that limit such awards; and the Republican-backed Litigation Fairness Act, which is pending in the Senate, would make lawsuits filed by the government subject to the same procedures and laws that apply to injured persons...
Supporters of tort reform complain that trial lawyers are fighting it by contributing millions of dollars to the campaign coffers of sympathetic elected officials and judges. Last year trial lawyers gave $2.7 million in soft money to the national Democratic Party. Angelos personally gave $400,000. In fact, most of this trial-lawyer money went to Democratic candidates for Congress--the group that has been most instrumental in holding the line against national tort reform...