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Few of the ultra-right�s obsessions have won such substantial backing from
mainstream corporate America as tort reform. Corporate boards may have little
stake in school vouchers or abortion, but every company wants to limit its
liability. The total spent on lobbying, advertising, think tanks, endowing
chairs at law schools and electing reform-friendly judges and legislators
probably exceeds $1 billion over a thirty-year period, according to Leonard
Salle, president of the Commonweal Institute and co-author of its report �The
Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law.� But despite two successful waves of tort
reform in the states in the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, in Washington antilawsuit
bills died in committee. As an issue, �tort reform� had a chilly, academic ring,
like lobbying for the metric system.
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