20 Year House of Cards Comes Crashing Down
Last night, the Georgia House voted by a one-vote margin to pass Governor Kemp’s tort reform bill. Three Democrats voted for the bill, which is unfortunate and needs to be looked at more closely. At least one almost lost in 2024 in a trending R district and is probably gone after 2026.
But the real story is the 20 year long strategy of GTLA - the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association - and their long strategy of propping up “friendly” Republicans finally coming to a disastrous close. Since Gov. Roy Barnes lost in 2002 and Republicans completed their takeover of the state in 2004, the trial lawyers have pursued a curious strategy of - let’s just say it - trying to buy off Republicans who are hostile to their core issue - at the expense of rebuilding Democratic majorities (or stronger minorities) where they have natural allies.
Democratic support of trial lawyers and the lawsuits they file against big businesses is truly one of the last pure David vs Goliath type pursuits the party has stuck to as it has changed over the years. Big business has snookered many little guys into thinking that their pursuit of absolute profit and the tiny share that could result for the little guy in lower rates or prices somehow outweighs the personal or societal gain that the same little guy could get by righting wrongs - particularly wrongs that occurred when the wrongdoer knew they were wrong but didn’t care because of greed. From what I hear, GTLA was opposed even to using compelling stories of “little guys” - even those who were victims of human trafficking - to make a case on the merits. It was all about the backroom strategy.
Well, that strategy died on Mar 20. And it died because ultra-conservative pro-business Republicans like Sen. John Albers (who GTLA supported) sit in seats they won 51-49 instead of natural allies like Democrat Sarah Beeson (who Albers barely defeated in 2020 with lots of help from GTLA). GTLA’s coordinated giving has probably led to 1-2 fewer Senate seats and as many as 5-10 fewer House seats - a potential majority and trial-lawyer friendly Democratic Speaker!
Let’s not forget that GTLA was a major back-door funder of former Speaker David Ralston’s PAC (who was a Republican friendly trial laywer). In 2020, his PAC was used to take out Democratic leader Bob Trammell - a rural trial lawyer who was not only replaced by a conservative pro-business Republican (who naturally was one of the deciding votes in favor of tort reform last night) but was also the only effective Democratic leader the body has really had since the Democrats bottomed out in 2010. Under Trammell’s leadership the House Democrats had a professional caucus that recruited candidates and had flipped more than a dozen seats from red to blue.
To put it bluntly, GTLA’s deference right up to the very end to the very Republicans who opposed them was mind boggling at the time and certainly so in retrospect. We all know that the 2017 Superbowl Falcons failed to run the ball, but what if it turned out the reason was because they didn’t want to offend Bill Belichick. Even as trial laywers like Glenda Mitchell funded their own billboards against tort reform and others like Charlie Bailey organized successful efforts at the Capitol to actually persuade legislators and voters to oppose tort reform, GTLA opposed even these very efforts to actually win because it would make the Governor mad. I don’t know if they even realized that the Governor had said his top priority was their destruction or if it even mattered - such was the house of cards.
While this is a sad day for Georgians, it’s actually a happy day for Democrats, and probably long term a bad day for Republicans. Why? If GTLA simply goes away, a major funder of swing-seat Republicans comes off the board. It would represent millions of dollars that have made it harder for Democrats to win key seats just disappearing. And if the majority of Democratic trial lawyers who have dutifully spread their donations to Republicans over the last two decades reconstitute and build a new organization that is dedicated instead to Democratic majorities, it would represent millions of new dollars going towards Democratic majorities.
Georgia’s trial lawyers learned a difficult lesson about partisan politics that many Democrats had urged them to consider for years - especially as partisan balance returned to Georgia’s elections - that politics is at the end of the day zero-sum and that when the rubber hits the road there’s no cheat code. The House of Cards has crumbled, here’s hoping Democratic trial lawyers will rebuild one with a sturdy foundation. Speaking as just one Democratic strategist, it will be good to work with them to restore justice in the state.