Smoke and Politics: Considering Senator Gillibrand’s Tobacco Past

NY Times ^ | April 10, 2009 | DOROTHY SAMUELS

[neverdem]

The American adversarial system of justice depends on the willingness of lawyers to vigorously represent unpopular, even odious clients. Criticizing a lawyer for his or her choice of client can be a dicey business. Like everyone else, though, lawyers bear responsibility for their decisions.

Take the career of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Before she was elected to Congress in 2006 (and later appointed to fill Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vacated Senate seat earlier this year), Ms. Gillibrand spent a significant chunk of her professional life working at a prestigious New...

--snip--

Her law firm allowed lawyers to decline work on tobacco cases if they had a moral or ethical objection. It wasn’t simply a matter of working “for the clients that were assigned to her,” as an aide explained. Tobacco duty was optional. She opted in. Others did not.

Although not long out of law school, Ms. Gillibrand was given substantial responsibility. She worked closely with company executives. She became steeped in the workings of a lab the cigarette company had located outside the United States in Germany with the express purpose of keeping negative research findings that showed a connection between smoking and cancer out of public view and beyond the reach of American subpoenas.

She was privy to unsuccessful efforts to dissuade a smaller tobacco company, the Liggett Group, from breaking ranks and cooperating with prosecutors — a move, it was feared, that could result in the release of incriminating internal documents and a strengthening of Food and Drug Administration efforts to regulate the marketing and sale of cigarettes, including to children.

Ms. Gillibrand sat with some of the nation’s most prominent tobacco attorneys from different law firms on a special committee whose work included preventing plaintiffs and the government from seeing documents that Philip Morris wanted to remain secret...

[neverdem]

IMHO, Kirsten Gillibrand will be damaged goods if she survives a primary.

Schumer says "traditional values" "strong foreign policy" over, Obama "talks bipartisanship, but..."

Rats including Schumer in NY might be uniquely vulnerable after one foreign policy debacle after another with no improvement in the economy...

[I_Like_Spam]

This is just a smear against Gillibrand. Lawyers aren’t responsible for the misbehavior of their clients.

Here in Pa., the fact that Sen. Specter was Ira Einhorn’s mouthpiece is no factor in my negative opinions about him.

[hkp123]

We’re beyond responsibility. Specter and his Scottish Laws have got to be voted out of office. Why and how can any US Senator live to be so old? What’s in their water? What’s in their wallet? ABS ( anyone but Specter ) 2010. Look at the light on your dashboard.

[presidio9]

[gwilhelm56]

Gillibrand, while 100% with the NRA, she is 92% straight out LIBERAL.. according to American Conservative Union ..
Schumer is SCUM ... no other term would apply(truthful term would get us Zotted)

I dunno...

[gwilhelm56]

Gillibrand, while 100% with the NRA, she is 92% straight out LIBERAL.. according to American Conservative Union ..
Schumer is SCUM ... no other term would apply(truthful term would get us Zotted)

I dunno... As tobacco is still LEGAL, I’m not even going there.

[neverdem]

I dunno... As tobacco is still LEGAL, I’m not even going there.

The point of the OpEd by DOROTHY SAMUELS is to encourage a primary fight which Carolyn McCarthy has promised if no one else will.

McCarthy knocks Gillibrand as choice for Senate (Schumer to McCarthy: stifle yourself)

[Brad from Tennessee]

This is the type of hit piece the Times began doing on Hillary and Bill once it looked like Obama was electable. Obviously they have someone else in mind for Gillibrand’s seat. Junior Sulzberger should run. He’ll need a job soon and he can fill out his Senate staff with laid-off Times employees.

[neverdem]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Samuels

Any time the left goes after its own, it’s a beautiful thing. Gillibrand has been heming and hawing on her Second Amendment bona fides already. In 2006, the left took over Congress because they ran candidates who were more socially conservative, mostly on the Second Amendment, but some were pro-life, e.g. Casey in PA.

[Brad from Tennessee]

[In 2006, the left took over Congress because they ran candidates who were more socially conservative. . .]

They even had a guy from one of the western states who chewed tobacco. Rahm Emanuel was the brains behind that strategy. He recruited many of those candidates. Some of them had been Republicans, or said they were. Jim Webb was the one that surprised me.