Trial Attorneys: "Thank You, Todd Spitzer"
Posted by: Slotur | 09/18/2008 9:00 AM
Just when the pick of Sarah Palin to be VP makes you proud to be a Republican again, I gotta read about this example of GOP legislators selling out to the trial lawyers.Meredith Turney posted yesterday on FlashReport.org how nine Assembly Republicans, led by Todd Spitzer, voted to send a bill, AB 1945 to the governor for signature. The other Reeps were Tom Berryhill, Greg Aghazarian, Paul Cook, Bonnie Garcia, Shirley Horton, Guy Houston George Plescia and Jim Silva.
You can read Meredith's post for the gory details of AB 1945, but suffice it to say it is an open invitation for fraud and increased medical litigation. That means higher insurance premiums, which in turn feeds Democratic calls for turning all health care over to the government.
Thank you, Todd Spitzer, for convincing eight of your colleagues to vote for this liberal Democratic bill and putting a smile on the face of every trial lawyer in the state. The Republican Party's image has taken a beating during the last few years from GOP legislators forgetting the first principles of our party, and acting more like the party of Lyndon Johnson than Ronald Reagan. We lost Congress as a result of putting self-preservation politics ahead of principles. That lessons has been slowly sinking into with the Republican Congress, but judging from the efforts of GOP Assemblymembers to pass a pro-trial lawyer bill, I wonder if our state legislators have fully absorbed that lesson.
I'm glad they hung tough and passed a no-tax budget, but come on guys! Last I checked, Republicans were supposed to believe in reducing the number of lawsuits, not increase them. The party dedicated to lowering the cost of private health insurance via the free market -- not making it more costly.
It's not surprising the Democrats would push such a bill. What is surprising, and shameful, is that AB 1945 would have died if Republicans had not provided the votes to pass it.
So what do conservatives do about this? Well, we can remember this next time one of the Trail Lawyers 8 seeks our support by proclaiming their conservative credentials. We can check their campaign finance reports for a sudden influx of trial attorney contributions.
Todd Spitzer, the ringleader, wants to run for Orange County District Attorney when Tony Rackauckas retires. That gives OC conservatives a couple of years to find and cultivate a strong, conservative Republican to back for that office. I mean, do we really want a guy who cuts deals with trial lawyers to be our D.A.?
In the meantime, readers ought t send each of these legislators an e-mail and ask them to apologize for supporting a liberal trial lawyer bill that takes us one step closer to government-run health care in California.
Todd Spitzer
Tom Berryhill
Greg Aghazarian
Paul Cook
Bonnie Garcia
Shirley Horton
Guy Houston
George Plescia
Jim Silva
Mr. Ayer registered as a Republican to be electable in an interim election with no incumbents. He did...
Good luck finding another candidate. Word is that Spitzer cut a deal with Mike Schroeder(a fellow trial lawyer who supports AB 1945) to get Tony's endorsement.
Todd is awesome! Thank you for all your hard work and dedication to keeping us all safe.
Todd you always do what is right!!!!
I truly hope you will run for DA, we need someone who is concerned about doing the right thing wether or not people agree.
Thank you for your work and time with AB 900, AB 808 and keeping prisoners behind bars!
I hope Jeff Miller is as awesome as you!!!
Meredith Turney claims that if people stop paying their insurance premiums, AB 1945 will force insurance companies to continue to pay for their coverage. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the author of the bill submitted a letter that was printed in the Assembly Journal to make it unequivocally clear that this bill does not, nor was it ever intended to, impact a health plan’s or insurer’s ability to cancel a person’s coverage when a person fails to pay for the coverage. Nowhere in the language of the bill does it even address cancellations for failing to pay premiums.
I’ve written about this bill on my blog, www.toddspitzerblog.org, a few times this past week and today I posted Assemblyman De La Torre’s letter which explains that AB 1945 does not change the existing Health & Safety Code Section 1365 (a) (1), which allows a health insurance company to cancel an enrollee’s coverage if he or she fails to pay for it. It simply lays out the regulatory process for canceling or rescinding coverage based upon information that was, or was not, provided during the application process. Please read the bill.
Hi Todd: I remembered the circumstances in which I heard you say something to the effect that you didn't want us to make you work so hard.
It was when the OC Central Committee was considering a position on the renewal of Measure M (8 years early as I recall). The OCRP was leaning towards NOT endorsing it, or taking a negative position on it.
Your comments were to the effect that you DID NOT WANT the OCRP to take that position, but to take NO position because you thought that it was too hard to get funding for OC out of Sacramento and if OC was at least willing to fund some of its transportation costs/roads/ etc. that it would appear we were trying to take care of ourselves. YOu followed that by saying please don't make me work that hard....people clapped because you are our local guy, and people are happy to see the local electeds grace us with their presence. But a whole lot of people were UNHAPPY that the OCRP took no position on it....much in part to your comments I imagine because they were pretty strongly opposed to the continuation of Measure M before you talked.