When Ken Connor was on Capitol Hill earlier this week, it was clear that people in his party deeply wish that he would go back to worrying about the unborn. The conservative Christian Republican trial lawyer had come to Washington to testify in support of a bill that would ban the use of mandatory binding arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts. Most nursing homes today, as a condition of admission, require vulnerable elderly people and their families to waive their right to sue a facility in the event of a dispute. Instead, they must take any complaints about medical malpractice or abuse to a private arbitrator, chosen and paid by the nursing home, in secret proceedings where any awards are much lower than they would be from a jury. The arbitration agreements are often buried in a stack of complicated paperwork, where in some cases, they have been signed by blind people and those suffering from Alzheimer's.
The nursing home arbitration bill is one of nearly a dozen Democratic-backed measures introduced in Congress over the past year that would ban mandatory arbitration in everything from new car contracts to meatpacking company agreements. With the backing of the powerful AARP, it's also the most likely of the lot to pass, and thus, pave the way for Congress to ban mandatory arbitration altogether. After all, if Congress deems the practice unconscionable for seniors, businesses will have a tough time arguing that it still ought to be forced on everyone else. That's why Republicans really, really don't want to vote for the nursing home bill, and one reason Connor's advocacy is making them squirm.
Connor sues nursing homes for a living, as a lawyer at a big-time plaintiffs' firm known for supporting Democrats. Just last month, Connor won a $2 million verdict against Sunrise Senior Living in California for letting an elderly woman develop fatal bedsores. So when he testifies on the Hill, Connor is essentially representing the nation's trial lawyers, who see mandatory arbitration as a threat to their livelihood. As such, Republicans would love to dismiss Connor as just another greedy trial lawyer. But Connor's religious-right bona fides simply make that impossible.
For three years, Connor served as the president of the Family Research Council, a leading social conservative outfit, and became a rock star among the GOP’s evangelical wing when he went to work in 2004 for then-Governor Jeb Bush to defend a Florida law that would have prevented doctors from removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. For Republican legislators, Connor has moral authority. He also gives money to many of them, so Republicans have to tolerate him, even as he forces them into a corner where they have to chose between devotion to industry and devotion to God and life.
While the GOP views trial lawyers as its mortal enemies, Connor doesn't see any contradiction between his profession and role as family values crusader. Instead, he sees his lawsuits against nursing homes as an extension of the work he did in the Schiavo case. "Removing the feeding tube, letting Teri Schiavo starve to death," he said in an interview, "I see this all the time with the elderly." Connor believes that the frail elderly are second only to the unborn in their suffering due to what he sees as a prevailing "quality of life" mindset, as opposed to one focused on the sanctity of life. He says he's witnessed bioethicists in Florida argue that if an elderly person suffers from dementia, there would be nothing wrong with hastening his or her demise. "If you call yourself a Christian, you have an obligation to fight for social justice," he says, noting that, "It's much easier to make the case for the elderly than for the unborn."
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/06/8689_a_righttolifer.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
