Ongoing litigation against tobacco companies is "bad public policy and bad legal policy."
Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor refuses, on principle, to sue the tobacco industry. "I'm a conservative, and I believe in the strict separation of governmental powers," Pryor explains, with a seeming nonsequitur that makes perfect sense. What does tobacco have to do with the separation of powers? More than you might imagine.
Pryor points out that the trend over the last fifty years has been for the liberal elite to push its agenda "through the courts, without a vote of either the people or their representatives in Congress or the Legislature. The results imposed by the courts involve a wide range of political issues, such as racial quotas, school prayer, abortion, and homosexual rights, but those issues belong in the political branches, such as Congress and the Legislature," Pryor insists. "The same is true of tobacco."
In a guest editorial published in a recent issue of The Greensboro Watchman, Bill Pryor questions the logic of those attorneys general who "say that the tobacco industry should pay the medical costs of treating tobacco-related illnesses. If that is true," posits Pryor, "then Congress or the Legislature should raise the tax on cigarettes. We do not need to pay liberal trial lawyers to tie up the court system for years to accomplish this result."
In other words, it's not a question of the result desired, but of the means, or venue, chosen to achieve it. Pryor maintains that the proper place for prescribing public policy is the legislative branch of government. "The problem for the liberals," he explains, "is that they do not believe that legislators -- the public officials closest to the people -- will raise the cigarette tax, so the liberals want the courts to 'solve' this political problem for them and enrich their trial lawyer allies along the way."
Pryor pooh-poohs the plaintiffs' posturing as consumer advocates. "If public health is the concern of the suing attorneys general and their trial lawyer allies," he asks, "then why do they want to allow the continued use of Liggett's harmful and addictive cigarettes and gain 25 percent of Liggett's profits?"
Tobacco litigation is not motivated by legal and health concerns; it's motivated by politics and money. "The overwhelming majority of the lawsuits have been filed by Democratic attorneys general and politically-connected, liberal trial lawyers," says Pryor. "If they succeed, who will they sue next? The whisky companies and fast food restaurants had better watch out." Pryor predicts that "there will not be a safe harbor for any business that sells an 'unhealthy' product, be it buttered popcorn or well-marbled beef."
Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor should be congratulated for his principled position and refusal to participate in an opportunistic charade. We all need to be reminded occasionally that there's a right way and a wrong way to get something done, and that even the right end cannot justify the wrong means.
