Big money

buys big win for tobacco industry

In what can only be viewed as another victory for powerful, deep-pocketed special interests, the federal government earlier this week all but dropped its landmark civil racketeering case against the tobacco industry.

At the conclusion of closing arguments Tuesday in the 6-year-old lawsuit, the Justice Department, without explanation, announced it would no longer seek the $130 billion settlement to fund programs to help smokers kick the habit that costs 440,000 lives and countless billions of tax dollars on health care each year. Instead, the feds are requesting a mere $10 billion over five years, according to the Washington Post.

The lawsuit had been the largest civil racketeering case in U.S. history, with six tobacco companies accused by the government of engaging in a 50-year conspiracy to defraud and addict smokers while glossing over or lying about the negative health effects of tobacco products. The $10-billion penalty may sound like a lot of money to regular working folks, but it is a shamefully paltry penalty to an industry that spends multiples of that amount on advertising and promoting smoking and tobacco products, often in a less-than-forthright manner.

The sudden turnabout in the case shocked even the industry's legal team.

"We were very surprised," said lead attorney Dan Webb. "They've gone down from $130 billion to $10 billion with absolutely no explanation. It's clear the government hasn't thought through what it's doing."

Or has it?

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics, the tobacco industry delivered campaign contributions totaling nearly $30 million in the last four elections since 1998. The biggest chunk of that money was in unregulated "soft money," and 80 percent of the total went to Republicans.

Additionally, in 2000 and 2004, of all the candidates for office who received tobacco-industry money, the single biggest beneficiary of tobacco-industry largesse was George W. Bush, who accepted more than a quarter-million dollars from industry and industry-related contributors.

This is not the first time this administration has attempted to let the industry off the hook for the lawsuit, which has its origins in the Clinton era. In 2001, it was only public outcry that forced former Attorney General John Ashcroft to give up trying to scuttle the case.

Public outcry - and outrage - should be equally vehement at Tuesday's decision and the system of campaign financing that spawned it. As long as big money is allowed in, the big favors it buys will poison "public" policy.