ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997 TAG: 9704230043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The cigarette makers are offering to curb marketing and pay billions of dollars in return for protection against future legal action.
Like a smoker who swears he's quitting, the tobacco industry may have a hard time persuading congressional critics to believe its promises.
If the industry succeeds in negotiations to escape lawsuits over the health costs of smoking, the next obstacle would be lobbying the deal through a suspicious Congress. Any agreement on blanket legal immunity would have to be blessed by Congress, because it would curb smoking victims' right to sue.
Still, tobacco has legions of lobbyists. Their task would be to persuade lawmakers that the public health benefits of increased tobacco regulation, less advertising and payments of billions of dollars are worth letting the cigarette makers off the hook for future lawsuits.
``Key senators and congressmen who have been prominent in the tobacco-control effort would have to be on board, or, at least, not actively opposed,'' said Richard F. Scruggs, a Pascagoula, Miss., a plaintiff's lawyer who is involved in the negotiations, and who is the brother-in-law of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.
Negotiators in the secret settlement talks say the country's largest cigarette makers are showing a remarkable change of heart, offering to curb marketing of their products and pay billions of dollars in return for protection against future legal action. The discussions continued this week in Chicago.
The first task for lobbyists will be to create a zone of political safety around the issue by bringing together one of the most unlikely coalitions Washington has ever seen.
That would include President Clinton, the cigarette makers, the American Medical Association and other health advocates, the Coalition for Tobacco-Free Kids, bipartisan congressional leaders and attorneys general in the 23 states that have sued tobacco companies to recover costs of treating smokers for health problems.
Big tobacco's longtime roots in Congress will help. Tobacco was an economic mainstay in the nation's early years; its leaves are carved into the speaker's rostrum and adorn the capitals of columns in the House chamber.
More recently, tobacco has maintained its place with money. In the run-up to last year's elections the industry gave $10 million to candidates and to the Democratic and Republican parties.
Last year, Philip Morris alone spent $19.6 million on its lobbying operation, which includes 13 in-house lobbyists and 15 outside consultants, law firms and lobbying firms. Contributions to candidates for Congress have risen more than ten-fold since 1980.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 linesby CNB