Vested Interest - February 2009 Issue

The President's Thoughts

“In every democracy, the people get the democracy they deserve.” Alexis de Tocqueville, 1831

We’ve now elected a new President, a stronger Senate and a forceful House of Representatives. Our former president has left us with a plethora of extreme challenges, century-worst deficits, a war on two fronts, utter chaos in respect to our global reputation and a miserable excuse for an environmental policy. And the financial mess that we’re stuck with will take years, not months, to get out of, if we’re lucky.

But hope and change, the two most overused but underappreciated words in the American lexicon last year, eventually became part of America’s demand for radical new leadership. American citizens, urban and rural, young and old, Democrats and (many, but not all) Republicans alike, adopted a “throw the bums out” mentality to the extent that it became inevitable, some say predestined, that Barack Obama, the proud Son of Illinois, would ascend to the highest office in the land. And with his election came a sonic boom of joy and optimism. We all believed that tomorrow can be, must be, and would be a better day. On November 4th the dreams of a nation were fulfilled.

That was then and this is now. And while we’ve celebrated over the past three months with the realization that the last eight years really are in our rear view mirror, as lawyers comfortable with the give-and-take of the courthouse, we quickly realized that the old saw “the devil is in the details” was always looking at us from a too-friendly distance, threatening the process of change with promises of filibusters and other guerilla-like attacks. Did we really think the insurance, medical and corporate cartel was going to rollover and play dead?

The actions of the new administration have been uplifting. The Congress seems amenable to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Rieger v Medtronic, which sharply limits liability suits against medical device makers by consumers, along with taking a close look at another preemption issue driven home by Wyeth v Levine, which involves the Federal Drug Administration and the labeling placed on FDA approved drugs. But what needed most to be addressed, at least in the short term, was a review and abrupt halt to all the “midnight regulations” that were enacted during the last few months by the soon-departing Bush bureaucratic machine. As incredible as it may seem, the outgoing administration gave a number of industries great big goodbye kisses to its favorite friends and supporters in the form of absolute state lawsuit immunities. The railroad industry was the biggest winner in this last-minute giveaway, with regulatory preemption involving motorcycle helmets, motorcycle brake systems, and vehicle roof crush resistance standards related to automotive rollovers trailing closely behind. Incredible as it may seem, the departing administration even provided preemption language that granted blanket immunity to the school bus manufacturing industry related to the installation and non-installation of safety seatbelts meant for the protection of our country’s most valuable resource — our children. It is reprehensible that the outgoing administration would make it next to impossible to provide any sort of oversight to an industry that transports millions of children everyday back and forth from their homes. But it did, and the Bush legacy will always carry that lasting stigma.

But in testament to common sense and an understanding that the days of corporate giveaways are now in the past, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration eventually delayed its release of rollover standards in December in order to allow the Obama Administration to oversee and eventually issue its own final rule— action that shows, at a minimum, that it’s no longer business as usual when it comes to doing the business of the people.

Our work is not finished. It probably never will be. But as the election of only a few months ago showed, hard work, grass roots organizing, efficient fundraising, and most importantly, identifying the right candidate along with the right issues, will usually result in the will of the people being honored and democracy, with all of its beauty and imperfections, rising and taking us to our rightful destiny.

This is just the beginning. We still have a lot of heavy lifting in front of us. But our core democratic principles have finally come home where they belong. So let’s take the opportunity to exult in the return of the rule of law and the majesty of the people, by the people and for the people.

Philip H. Corboy, Jr., President 2008-2009
Illinois Trial Lawyers Association