Texas is the Best Place for Avoiding Corporate Responsibility

Texas Governor Rick Perry held a press conference May 15, 2006, hailing a recent report that puts Texas at the top of the list for our laws that protect corporate wrongdoers. The report was produced by the Pacific Research Institute, a group funded by Oil, Tobacco, and Pharmaceutical companies.

The consumer group Texas Watch issued the following press release in advance of the Governor's press conference:

AUSTIN -- The Pacific Research Institute (PRI) a self-styled “free-market think tank” released a new ranking of state tort systems based on how well they serve the interests of corporate wrongdoers. Not surprisingly, Texas topped the list for its protection of special interests like Big Oil, Big Tobacco, and Big Pharma.

Governor Rick Perry, flanked by representatives of the special interests who have bankrolled the decades-long campaign to create a civil justice system that favors the polluters, tobacco industry and insurance companies over Texas citizens, crowed about the results at a morning press conference today.

“Given that well-heeled lobbyists for insurance and corporate interests have had their way with Texas legislators for the last twenty years, passing defendant friendly civil justice laws at the expense of Texas families, it is no surprise that a special interest outfit like the Pacific Research Institute would hail the results,” said Alex Winslow, Executive Director of the non-profit consumer advocacy organization Texas Watch.

PRI counts the following corporate interests all with a track record of supporting limitations on the legal rights of individual consumers -- among its major funders:

Oil Interests: ExxonMobil, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Koch Industries, and ChevronTexaco;
Drug Companies: Pfizer, PhRMA, and the Lilly Endowment; and
Tobacco and Alcohol Interests: Altria (Phillip Morris) and the Castle Rock Foundation (Coors Brewing Co.).
“If your goal is to allow senior citizens and children to be abused without accountability - or to allow insurance companies to turn their backs on homeowners - or to allow big drug companies to knowingly pedal dangerous pharmaceuticals, then sadly Texas is the place for you,” said Winslow. “If you believe corporate accountability is a quaint notion best exploited for a marketing campaign, then come on down.”

Winslow added: “Those of us who believe in personal responsibility hold out hope that Texas will return to a place where wrongdoers face real consequences for their actions.”

After decades of pro-defendant legal changes, special interests made their coup de grâce in 2003 when they pushed through a radical constitutional amendment (Proposition 12) that stripped Texans of their right to hold a wrongdoer accountable. The legislation was cynically billed as an attempt to improve our state’s health care system. Unfortunately, neither patients nor physicians have seen the improvements they were promised.

Underserved areas remain underserved, physician medical liability insurance premiums are still grossly inflated, there is no evidence of reductions in the cost of health care, and Texas continues to have the highest rate of uninsured in the nation. Meanwhile, Texans who have been harmed by medical negligence are unable to gain access to our courts.

“Instead of posturing for the cameras and crowing about a failed policy, our state leaders should be working to pass real legal reforms that protect Texas families not the polluters, insurance interests, and drug companies,” said Winslow.

For more information, visit the Texas Watch Web site.