As I mentioned in today’s Capitol Fax, go here, and look for the American Tort Reform Association’s article entitled “Winning the Tort War in Mississippi.”

Included in that study are some interesting strategies that tort reform supporters employed to win their fight in what was once a trial lawyer haven, including using the controversy over medical malpractice insurance to help spearhead a much broader reform agenda:

Because healthcare is so important in people’s lives, doctors became the “tip of the spear” in the tort reform fight. If there was a press conference, we always tried to have a number of doctors in their “white coats” there. The medical affordability and availability issue also resonated well with the public. People understood the problem when they heard about people having to drive two hours to find a doctor to deliver a baby.

If you go here, or here you’ll find some contrarian takes on the tort reform crisis. Then, try this and this and this for articles on why reform is needed.

Meanwhile, check out The Political Money Line, which has posted the top ten federal lobbyist expenditures by organization for the first six months of last year. They are:

Notice that at least seven of them (the Chamber groups, AMA, big Pharma, Philip Morris, the asbestos guys, and the hospitals) are all keenly interested in tort reform.