Mike Ciresi and Norm Coleman, some observations

Midway Barb left a comment to my post ["Ciresi Out” 3/10/08] ago to which I have responded.

It occurs to me that perhaps the whole matter really merits being a post of its own, so I am excerpting her [or his] question and my reply here.

Midway Barb said

Isn't it true that your dislike of Ciresi comes from his role in the tobacco suit? If he had saved us from some other community nusance wouldn't you like him?

This is my response:

I think that Mr. Ciresi’s opportunistic exploitation of the cigarette industry is not the reason I could never support him for anything.

And it would not be because he is a trial lawyer. A lot of lawyers do good things and working on contingency is often the only way some litigation could be brought about.

Poor people or people of moderate means often hire attorneys on contingency when they have wrongs that need addressing. On big successful cases the attorneys make a real bundle, but it is often the only way that poor folks have access to the court system for redress for real wrongs.

But if I am to choose between Ciresi and Norm, there really isn’t much choice. One is a lawyer who used his profession to make a lot of money which should have belonged to either the stockholders of the tobacco companies or the taxpayers of Minnesota, depending on how you view the merits of the case. Norm worked for a salary for the attorney general’s office.

Politicians often try to scare people into helping their careers by citing bogus enemies or crises. [Remember W on Saddam or JFK on the missile crisis?] When Skippy wanted to find a bogus enemy to propel him to the governorship and decided to sue tobacco for wrongs to the citizens of Minnesota, wrongs more detectable from intuition than from any fact that the companies had forced smoke into people’s bodies, he wanted to make a real big splash and get money in ten or eleven digits. He needed to find a way to make billions in punitive damages. He doubted if any of the lawyers in his office could do the job, so he made a deal with Ciresi and his Robbins law firm. He and Ciresi hoped that if they could sue for enough money and tie up the tobacco companies’ law departments long enough that they could pick up a small fortune. Skippy really wasn’t concerned about how much money Ciresi got as long as he could get big headlines about billions scared out of what they called “Big Tobacco.” They had no problem ignoring the inconvenience to the taxpayers paying for the suit or needing the real attention of the Ramsey County courts and the poor people conscripted to be on the jury, pushed their dubious case. Ciresi knew the contingency business and must have liked his chances and Skippy likely was figuring that it was now or never for his gubernatorial dreams so it was time to take the shot.

When tobacco finally surrendered, Ciresi was allowed to walk away with a very big chunk thanks to a wonderful contract he and Skippy had arranged beforehand which sent money the plaintiff [supposedly us] would receive straight to the Robbins firm instead of to the legislature. Other money was diverted to a state foundation instead of the body our constitution charges with deciding how to spend state assets.

I don’t doubt that this was all done legally and I don’t doubt that this was all done ethically when viewed in the narrow perspective of legal ethics [often a lovely oxymoron]. After all, it was written by smart lawyers, at least on Robbins’ end. But it stunk and it still stinks.

Norm Coleman also worked as a lawyer for the state and he prosecuted some really provable enemies of Minnesota while doing so. But Norm only took his salary, which may have been generous, but was never more than the low six figures, if that high.

When Norm has run for office he has had to do it the old-fashioned way by begging contributors for donations. State service had not given him millions in his own private vaults.

While I think that neither way of funding a campaign is the best, Norm’s is surely the better. It is one that you don’t have to be a lawyer to use.

And between the two of them, there would have been no problem for me in deciding whom to support. And I would like to think that I would have taken the same position, no matter what imaginary enemy Ciresi and Skippy had taken on.

With Franken it will be different.

RS