3/7/2014 update: A year after the initially undisclosed lobbying efforts of HLGR’s Dave Frohnmayer and Bill Gary helped defeat the first attempt:
NEWS RELEASE
March 4, 2015
Governor Kate Brown Signs Legal Aid Bill
(Salem, OR) — Today, Governor Kate Brown signed House Bill 2700, sending unclaimed damage awards to legal aid, instead of going back to the company that was sued.
“This law makes Oregon’s class action laws fair for all Oregonians and ensures that corporations who are responsible compensate for the harm they have caused, and helps support our critically underfunded legal services,” said Governor Kate Brown. link to photos
3/6/2014: Buying Dave Frohnmayer pays off big for Philip Morris and BP Legal aid bill defeated in Senate, 15-15:
The concern, expressed openly by several Republican senators, is that they will now be painted as wanting to help Big Oil and Big Tobacco – both targets of class action suits in Oregon — instead of the average or low-income voter.
Dave is obviously a talented lobbyist. I wonder why he couldn’t get the legislature to give deals like this to UO, back when he was president? We didn’t properly incentivize him?
2/23/2014 update: RG Editors dismiss Frohnmayer and Gary arguments, note 48 other states now do this, and support HB 4143.
2/22/2014 update: Steve Duin has an excellent review of the conflict of interest issues swirling around Frohnmayer’s opposition to HB 4143, which would take unclaimed damages from class action settlements against his clients like Philip Morris, and use it to fund legal aid for the poor. Currently Oregon lets the corporations have it back, if they can’t find the people it’s owed to. In the Oregonian, here: