KILL THE LAWSUITS: On September 8, the House Judiciary Committee reported out the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act (LARA, HR 4571) designed to advance the goal of cutting down on the frivolous lawsuits that are overwhelming American business. The bill passed by a party-line vote with the majority Republicans in favor and the minority Democrats opposed. Rep. Lamar Smith (R.-Tex.), chief sponsor of the bill, said, "Frivolous lawsuits harm our economy and threaten to bankrupt business owners. This is especially true of small business owners who do not have the money to fund prolonged lawsuits. Today almost any party can bring any suit in practically any jurisdiction. That's because plaintiffs and their attorneys have nothing to lose. All they want is for the defendant to settle. This is legalized extortion. It is lawsuit lottery." LARA would implement mandatory sanctions for filing frivolous lawsuits and abolish "forum-shopping" by restricting the jurisdictions in which a lawsuit can be filed to where the plaintiff resides, where he was supposedly injured, or where the defendant's business headquarters is located.
KILL THE LAWSUITS II: For 15 years, an atheist along with the American Civil Liberties Union has legally harassed a veterans' group, the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association of San Diego, because it has a 43-foot cross on top of Mt. Soledad. The association finally caved in to the ACLU and agreed to remove the cross, angering some vets. The Thomas More Law Center is trying to halt the deal. Said Richard Thompson, chief counsel of the center, "I am shocked by the memorial association's surrender to the ACLU and the forces of atheism that are embarked on a campaign to remove every vestige of religion from the public square." The cross dates from 1954 and honors those who fought in Word War I, World War II, and the Korean War. Legal issues in the suit include whether the association owns the land on which the cross sits or whether the City of San Diego owns it, and whether the association can take down the cross when it promised donors of plaques at the memorial that the cross would remain.
ADVICE TO CHURCHES: The Alliance Defense Fund and the James Madison Center for Free Speech have announced that they "will offer free legal advice to churches, pastors, and priests on how to speak about the great social and moral issues of our day without risking the loss of tax-exempt status. To this end, they have prepared a free guide summarizing the various activities that are allowed under the Internal Revenue Code and the Federal Election Campaign Act." Jim Bopp, general counsel for the Madison Center and an attorney who fought hard against the McCain-Feingold political censorship law, said, "The best defense is to know your rights."
PARTIAL BIRTH DEAD: Now that all three federal trials over the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act have gone against the legislation protecting children inches from birth from having their brains sucked out, what's the next step? National Right to Life Committee Legislative Director Douglas Johnson said: "Future appointments to the Supreme Court will determine whether partial-birth abortion remains legal. President Bush is determined to ban partial-birth abortion, but John Kerry has vowed that he will appoint to the Supreme Court only justices who share his views on abortion." The cases are on appeal, but given the Supreme Court's fanaticism over the "health of the mother," while ignoring the death of the infants, most observers believe there is little chance of the law's ever being cleared by the current court, even though U.S. District Judge Richard Casey in New York wrote August 26: "The court finds that the testimony at trial and before Congress establishes that D&X [partial-birth] abortion is a gruesome, brutal, barbaric, and uncivilized medical procedure." Casey found that Supreme Court precedent required him to strike down the law.
DEMS KILL RELIGIOUS OUTREACH: After two false starts, the Democrats have apparently killed their religious outreach program. "On August 2, the Catholic League exposed the Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson, the Democratic National Committee's first-ever senior advisor for Religious Outreach, as someone who had signed on to an amicus brief supporting atheist Michael Newdow in his attempt to excise the words 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance," noted Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights President William Donohue on September 8. "She quit two days later." The Kerry campaign's religious outreach director, Mara Vanderslice, has been kept quiet since the Catholic League exposed her radical past.
