A Successful Lobbying Campaign--- The Connecticut Education Reform Bill Watered Down

The second biggest teacher's union is the AFT, the American Federation of Teachers (the biggest is the National Education Association, made up of state unions such as the CEA, Connecticut Education Association). They put a powerpoint presentation, "How Connecticut Diffused The Parent Trigger" on their website (in pdf) explaining in detail how they gutted a bill that would have given parents more power over poorly-performing schools. Rather than kill it, they purposely kept it alive but made it empty of meaning.

This is standard stuff, and a good case study for how a business can affect legislation, but the webpage "The AFT’s Real Feelings about Parent Power" criticized it, and it didn't look good that prominent on the slide "What Helped Us" was "Absence of charter school and parent groups
from the table". As I said in class, though, that's central to politics--- if you're unorganized or rationally ignorant, your surplus is weighted less heavily or not at all in politics.

Should Judges Be Appointed, Elected, or Chosen by a Nonpartisan Commission?

"Missouri: Trial-Lawyer Heaven" at National Review's Bench Memos blog says:

Late last week Missouri’s judicial-nominating commission selected the three nominees from which Gov. Jay Nixon must choose the state’s next supreme-court justice. ...
Three of the commission’s seven members have extremely strong ties to the state’s trial lawyers, and the chairman, Chief Justice Richard Teitelman, is on the board of the Soros-funded American Judicature Society. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the commission came through with a trial lawyer’s wish-list.

The Missouri Plan was designed to produce precisely this sort of result. The progressive legal reformers who came up with the idea saw it as the surest way of placing control over judicial selection in the hands of “experts,” left-leaning bar apparatchiks. ... It does so by allowing a commission, usually lawyer-dominated, to make the judicial nominations. Not surprisingly, this structure benefits the special-interest group that dominates the state bar: trial lawyers. Textbook agency-capture.

Justice O’Connor and her allies in various Soros-funded groups have been campaigning across the country on the argument that the Missouri Plan is a non-political method for selecting judges. ... They argue that, unlike the federal model or contested elections, the Missouri Plan removes partisanship and money from the equation and forces “merit” ahead of philosophical considerations.

As the Wall Street Journal documented (see here and here), former Republican governor Matt Blunt was repeatedly sent lists of trial lawyers and Democrats. And Professor Brian Fitzpatrick’s empirical study of the Missouri Plan nominees demonstrates that it would probably be impossible to tilt judicial nominations further to the left without actually having the Democratic party itself pick the judges.

"The Dog Ate My Homework" Bill

In "A Late Addition Worth $214 Million: Amendment to the Patent Reform Bill Last Week Would Benefit Powerful Law Firm, Drug Company," Roll Call magazine writes about what is known in the blogosphere as the "The Dog Ate My Homework" bill:

The House might have sworn off earmarks, but that didn’t stop the chamber from essentially passing one last week that would allow a single drug company to avoid generic competition while saving a powerful law firm from paying out $214 million in a malpractice suit.

The amendment, authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and added to the patent reform bill Thursday, would have a direct benefit for the Medicines Co. by essentially ensuring it retains control of the patent for Angiomax, a blood-thinning medication and MDCO’s flagship product.

The provision would also be a financial boon to WilmerHale, which since February has had a malpractice settlement with MDCO hanging over its head that would require the firm to pay $214 million to the drug company — $115 million out of its own pocket and $99 million from malpractice insurance — if a generic drug is introduced before June 15, 2015.

Here's how the saga started:

At issue is MDCO’s 2000 application to maintain its patent over Angiomax. Following approval of the sale of the drug by the Food and Drug Administration in December 2000, the company had 60 days to file for a patent extension, which under the law would have precluded the sale of generic versions of the drug until 2014.

WilmerHale attorneys handling the application for MDCO technically filed the extension 61 days after the approval, and because the Patent and Trademark Office does not have authority to give applicants wiggle room in filing, the application was denied, meaning generics would hit shelves in 2010, costing MDCO an estimated $500 million to $1 billion in profits.

Here's the business strategy:

To regain control of the patent, MDCO opened up a three-pronged offensive. It filed suit against the PTO, arguing that because the FDA used a different interpretation to calculate the 60-day permit trigger, its 61-day filing time actually fell within the PTO’s definition.

MDCO also began malpractice proceedings against WilmerHale over its handling of the patent extension, while both MDCO and WilmerHale launched an aggressive effort to pass legislation overturning the extension rejection.

Over the next several years, MDCO and WilmerHale spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress, and several ultimately unsuccessful efforts to pass the legislation were attempted.

The amendment was sponsored by the Detroiter who I think is the longest-serving current member of the House, John Conyers:

In a floor statement before Thursday’s vote, Conyers, the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, called the language a “bipartisan amendment” that would make a “technical — but important — revision” to federal patent law.

“It addresses confusion regarding the calculation of the filing period for patent term extension applications,” Conyers said, adding that, “By eliminating confusion regarding the deadline for patent term extension applications, this amendment provides the certainty necessary to encourage costly investments in lifesaving medical research.”

For reference (you don't have to read it): Medicines v. Kappos, 731 F.Supp.2d 470 (2010).