I was hoping to see Fred step up and he did last night, but when I learned he voted with the trial lawyers and against the doctors he lost my vote. I can’t support a candidate who supports legalized extortion.
So Fred lost your support....ok....which one of the other candidates did he lose it to?
Before you blindly believe what another candidate says about a rival, or ignore Thompson’s response about tort reform, read the facts:
* Legal Reform: Supported legal reform measures with a significant interstate nexus.
o
o Supported Product Liability Reform Measures.
o Voted For “Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act.”
o Voted For “Private Securities Litigation Reform Act” And Voted To Override President Clinton’s Veto.
o Supported “Y2K Readiness And Responsibility Act” Conference Report.
Supported Passage Of The Republican “Patients’ Bill Of Rights Plus Act” In 1999. The bill included legal protections for patients, as well as tax provisions to increase access to health insurance by reducing the cost of health care coverage.
* Believes Legal Reforms Without A Significant Interstate Nexus Are Best Left To The States. Including medical liability reform and volunteer liability protections.
No he voted correctly in accordance with the principles of federalism.
He voted for tort reform when the reform involved interstate commerce, product liability and cases that involved more than one state but he correctly voted to keep the federal government out of uniquely state issues. He did not want to see tort reform become federalized when it clearly involved issues at the state level.
Texas, Florida and others have passed strong tort reform laws that protect doctors from litigants with no basis. That’s the way it should be.
My wife is a practicing board certified physician and I am a research PhD. We both understand the issue of tort reform in the medical field very well. But federalism is given more priority when it comes to the involvement of the federal government. We can both advance with many of our colleagues medical tort reform in our state without federal government involvement.
When we look at the problems of our society, whether abortion, banning school prayer, public schools and so on, they all have the common theme of having had the federal government stick its nose into activities that it has no business being involved in. Fred Thompson has correctly determined that it is the federal judiciary that has allowed the federal government to expand its scope far beyond anything ever envisioned by the architects of the Constitution.
Fred gave precisely the right answer to Guiliani’s lame attempt at deflecting from the fact that he is a liberal. Guiliani may be a fast talker like most New Yorkers, he may have a good rebuttal on some issues but he is still a liberal. He would do much better as a democrat debating Hillary Clinton in the democrat debates.
The problem a lot of people have with Fred is that they confuse a stand he takes, in line with Federalist principles, to be his overall stand on an issue. Sometimes it just means that he believes something should be handled at the state level, rather than by the Feds.
I can't say that I always agree with him on this, butI agree that it is very very dangerous to have everything be a Federal law. Having differences between states allows for a natural selection of ideas, while universal mandates can backfire in very big ways.