California AG Lockyer Puts Lawyers Ahead of Consumers
By Hovannes Abramyan
California’s hyper-activist Attorney General Bill Lockyer kicked up dust clouds of controversy recently by calling Rep. Michael Rogers (R-MI) a “dumb (expletive deleted) …” during a Washington, D.C. news conference.
The issue at hand was a bill introduced by Rogers that would set a federal uniform standard for food labeling and, in the process, prevent states from plastering unnecessary health warnings on already confusing labels.
Rogers, a third-term lawmaker who represents the Lansing area, drew Lockyer’s fire for arguing that “a pregnant woman buying peas on a shelf in Michigan has the same right” to the same food information as a pregnant woman buying peas in California.
Aside from its inherent incivility, Lockyer’s profane comment reflects just how aggressive state attorneys general have become in expanding their power into legislative realms where their presence was once considered verboten.
Although a bipartisan majority in the House passed Rogers’ bill by a 283 to 139 count, Lockyer and 36 other attorneys general, including New York’s Elliott Spitzer and Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, swiftly denounced it.
Their blast follows dozens of moves by various state attorneys general in the past few years to regulate by fiat rules that properly ought to be legislated by the people’s elected representatives.
Last summer, for instance, Lockyer sued nine companies, including McDonald’s and Frito-Lay, alleging health mislabeling of their products under California’s Proposition 65. The law, passed in 1986, mandates that warning must be given whenever individuals are exposed to chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.
According to Lockyer, French fry and potato chip packages must contain labels warning consumers of the presence of acrylamide, a chemical compound that in high concentrations has been shown to increase risk of cancer in laboratory animals such as rats. But medical researchers have found that the doses of acrylamide in foods have only negligible effects on humans and do not raise the risk of cancer.
After comprehensively surveying the medical evidence, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently concluded that, due to this lack of evidence, warning signs of cancer risks are unnecessary.
Undeterred, Lockyer claimed that he only wants to inform consumers so they can make their own food decisions. In reality, Lockyer’s activism empowers personal injury lawyers much more than it does consumers, who have been bombarded with so many warning labels that they now tend to ignore them.
Since the passage of Proposition 65, California trial lawyers have had a field day amassing millions by suing any company who fails to meet the state’s draconian labeling standards.
Mandating that food manufacturers and sellers be required to issue warnings for tiny amounts of acrylamide not shown to carry cancerous risk opens up a large pool of possible defendants for personal injury lawyers to sue. And while the food industry has deep pockets, their coerced settlements with the lawyers are quickly passed onto consumers in the form of ever-escalating supermarket prices.
Lockyer’s passionate fight, in this light, appears a little less noble. If Lockyer’s suits are successful he will prop open the door for trial lawyers to make a killing. And Lockyer has ample incentive to please trial lawyers.
In the 1998 attorney general election, the top contributors to Lockyer were lawyers and law firms — including many specializing in class actions and personal injury lawsuits. All told, they donated $971,610 to his campaign for attorney general.
This financial support is essential for Lockyer, who in the past publicly pondered running for governor, but has now decided to run for state treasurer. For Lockyer, keeping trial lawyers happy is a must — and it is accomplished through judicial activism.
Lockyer’s activist priorities have come under fire in the past. State Senator Dick Ackerman, who challenged Lockyer for attorney general in 2002, accused his opponent of politicizing the office and neglecting his crime-fighting duties. Others have charged that Lockyer uses high-profile activist litigation for self-promotion to attain higher office.
In using activism for political gain, Lockyer is not alone. New York Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer announced a run for the state governorship amid a series of investigations that garnered much public attention to his office. Attorneys general in other states are likely to follow suit.
Here in California, some fear that the Democratic candidate to replace Lockyer for California attorney general — former governor Jerry Brown — might also follow in his activist footsteps.
With an alarming rise in gang-related crime in the state, now more than ever, activism and showboating should take a backseat to crime-fighting. By using lawsuits to promote partisan legislation with taxpayer money, Lockyer sets a horrible example for his successor and other attorneys general around the country.
Hovannes Abramyan is a policy fellow in business and economic studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
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