Lawmakers’ coffers benefited

Erin Neff

Thursday, Aug. 29, 2002 | 11:21 a.m.

Doctors and lawyers donated more than $100,000 to Southern Nevada legislators as the medical malpractice crisis bloomed and lawmakers were called into a special session, campaign finance reports show.

Trial lawyers donated more to legislators before the special session to address medical malpractice, records show.

Thirty-one lawmakers and legislative candidates from Southern Nevada received some type of medical malpractice donation. Dozens of other legislative reports filed this week contained no such donations.

Trial lawyers donated earlier in the year and in a much more organized fashion than did medical political action committees.

"The trial lawyers are definitely a very organized group," said Jan Gilbert, Northern Nevada director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. "They know who makes those votes and they work hard to get people elected who support their philosophy."

Doctors and lawyers were both intently interested in the legislation. Doctors wanted jury awards on medical malpractice claims capped because their insurance premiums had skyrocketed. The insurance industry said a cap would help stabilize premiums.

Lawyers have fought such caps, saying the caps take away a person's right to sue and be compensated.

The bill that passed the Legislature garnered bipartisan support. It included a cap on jury awards for pain and suffering damages, but the bill also allowed several exemptions to the cap, giving lawyers some comfort.

Citizens for Justice, the Nevada Trial Lawyers PAC, doled out $30,500 in $250 to $2,000 donations to the 19 Democrats and 12 Republicans assessed by the Sun based on the availability of reports Wednesday evening. Several reports were still unavailable as of Wednesday night.

An additional $31,000 was doled out by individual trial lawyers who were active in the negotiations, like Dean Hardy, Tim Williams, Jim Crockett and Gerald Gillock.

Doctors, who organized as the Nevada Medical Liability Task Force and as Nevada Concerned Citizens, used neither name in giving contributions. And individual doctors who were active in the negotiations, like Raj Chanderraj, donated only minimally for less than $2,000 added up.

The Nevada Medical Political Action Committee gave $21,500 to lawmakers and some candidates. Just as the lawyers donated to both parties, so too, did the medical PACs.

In addition to that $21,500, the Clark County Medical Society handed out $1,500 and individual doctors, perhaps motivated to donate by the crisis, are listed as giving more than $25,000.

Craig Walton, director of UNLV's Center for Ethics and Policy Studies, said the donations alone don't raise any ethical questions because both sides needed a voice in the debate and campaign financing is legal.

But one of his concerns is that the special session didn't address any of the outlying medical malpractice issues such as professional ethics for attorneys or physicians.

"Some of the professional ethics issues that bind attorneys and bind physicians just weren't on the table," Walton said. "But there isn't any lobby for professional ethics and it's the people who have to trust the officials."

Some of the lawmakers the medical community was lobbying heavily -- like Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas -- did not have to file campaign reports because they are not up for re-election. The report for Assemblywoman Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, who was also very supportive of doctors, was not available.

For the most part, the heaviest lobbying in the debate occurred right before the special session when both lawyers and doctors flooded the air with television commercials and bought full-page newspaper ads.

Doctors also launched a grass-roots campaign.

Both sides also gave money. Campaign finance records show trial lawyers made a point of reaching out to Assembly Democratic leadership early, giving $10,750 in individual donations to Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins on March 4.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, who chaired the legislative interim committee to study medical malpractice, got $4,450 in individual donations from the lawyers most involved in the talks.

The typical medical donations involved $1,000 or less before the special session, and in some cases $1,000 or less after the session. Assemblyman David Parks, D-Las Vegas, received $1,000 from the Nevada Medical PAC on July 16 and again on Aug. 22.

The special session began July 29, and a prohibition on fund-raising continued for lawmakers until Aug. 16.

Assemblywoman Merle Berman, R-Las Vegas, is the only lawmaker whose report was analyzed by the Sun who accepted a campaign contribution during the prohibited period.

Berman listed a $1,000 donation on Aug. 12. Berman said this morning that she did not know the donation was made during the prohibition period. She said she would return the donation.

Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, did return two checks his campaign got from Citizens for Justice for $2,000 before he went to Carson City for the session because he was against their position.

Gilbert said she thinks doctors will learn from their first organized lobbying attempts, and since medical malpractice reform will be revisited in the 2003 session, Gilbert thinks more money will pour into campaigns in coming months.

"If I were them, I would," Gilbert said. "This isn't over."