Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobbying organization, said it will help pay for advertisements suggesting ``dangers'' associated with having trial lawyers aligned with the White House.
The chamber will help fund an independent political organization that will ``tell the truth about the role John Edwards and the trial lawyers have played in driving up health care costs,'' said Bill Brock, a former Republican National Committee chairman and former U.S. senator who is co-chairing the group, the November Fund.
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign considers the ads an example of President George W. Bush ``allowing shadowy outside groups to do his dirty work,'' spokesman David Wade said. Edwards, a U.S. senator from North Carolina and former trial lawyer, is Kerry's running mate.
The chamber said it would not endorse Bush, who includes curbs on lawsuits as part of his re-election campaign. Bush called yesterday for an end to advertising by organizations not directly controlled by the candidates, including a group of Vietnam veterans who attacked Kerry's military service in ads this month. The chamber said its campaign is intended to educate voters on how lawsuits hurt businesses.
``We cannot ignore what may prove to be a make-or-break election for legal reform at the national level,'' Chamber President Thomas Donohue said. ``When voters go to the polls, they need to know lawsuit abuse destroys jobs, drives doctors out of business and forces companies into bankruptcy.''
New Political Group
The other co-chair of the November Fund, which is incorporated under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Service code, is Craig L. Fuller, who was chief of staff to Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, when he was vice president. The chamber said in an e-mailed statement that the ads would run in seven states where polls show a tight race between Kerry, 60, and Bush, 58. The group said it would spend millions of dollars on the effort.
Fuller said the ads will ``educate voters how much the actions of trial lawyers cost our economy over $200 billion a year. Frivolous lawsuits are costing ordinary Americans over $3,000 a year per family in extra costs for everything from cars to childcare to prescription drugs.''
Kerry has been supported by trial lawyers, who oppose the Bush administration's proposals to limit lawsuits. One trial lawyer, Fred Baron, is a Kerry campaign finance co-chairman.
The chamber said it also would fund a voter education campaign on lawsuit abuse with businesses in six to 10 states. The campaign ``will highlight the growing political influence of the trial bar and remind the business community of the dangers of having this group closely aligned with the White House.''
Chamber Lobbying
As Congress earlier this year considered legislation to limit how much people injured by medical malpractice could collect in damages, and a separate bill shifting most class action suits from state courts to federal courts, the chamber and its Institute for Legal Reform spent $30 million to lobby during the first six months of 2004, the Secretary of the Senate filings show. That was three times more than any other lobbying group, according to Political MoneyLine, an Internet site that tracks campaign finance and lobbying disclosures. The chamber spent $35 million for all of 2003.
These latest efforts are in addition to the chamber's efforts in individual House and Senate races, including a $400,000 advertising campaign against Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, who is being challenged for re- election by former Republican Representative John Thune. The ad criticized Daschle's opposition to the medical malpractice bill.
`Fear and Smear'
Kerry urged Bush to quit ``the tactics of fear and smear,'' in remarks prepared for delivery in New York today.
The excerpts from Kerry's speech provided by the campaign don't name the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of Vietnam veterans and former Navy gunboat officers with financial backing from Republican donors in Bush's home state of Texas.
Other veterans who served with Kerry are defending him, including Chicago Tribune editor William Rood, former Navy lieutenant Jim Russell, and former Green Beret Jim Rassmann.
The Swift boat veterans group said yesterday it doesn't plan to quit its anti-Kerry campaign and will air new ads this week in New Mexico, Nevada and Pennsylvania, three other states where polls show a close race between Bush and Kerry.
The Bush campaign denies any connection to the ads. The Swift Boat Veterans group issued a statement saying it ``has never coordinated its efforts with any party or any other organization.'' A member of Bush's veterans' steering committee stepped down from the campaign after appearing in the latest Swift Boat Veterans commercial slated to air beginning tomorrow.
Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and former Vietnam prisoner of war, two weeks ago called the Swift Boat group's ad dishonest and urged the White House to condemn it.