Taking Care Of (State) Business
BY MICHAEL WEISSKOPF AND ADAM ZAGORIN
Joe Lieberman may be best known as a moral leader, but he's also
a politician--one who has aggressively defended his state's
corporate interests. In his 12 Senate years, he has been a dogged
advocate for Connecticut's top employers in the pharmaceutical,
insurance and defense industries.
There's nothing uncommon--or wrong--about a politician's working
on behalf of his constituents; Lieberman's service is no
different from a Michigan politician's protecting the auto
industry or a Texas politician's looking out for big oil. But it
helps explain his enormous popularity in Connecticut, the
generous contributions he has received from its industries and
some of the positions he has taken on their behalf.
Insurance companies, for instance, have handed him more cash
($197,000) than any other Senator has received this election.
That has not kept Lieberman from favoring a plan that would give
patients a new right to sue their insurer-owned HMOs. But in
general he has been eager to take the insurers' side. Lieberman
is one of a handful of Democrats who support limits on the
liability of corporations and, in turn, their insurers for
injuries caused by products and services. He has sponsored bills
to reduce the number of lawsuits by workplace victims of asbestos
and to eliminate legal claims for pain and suffering by
car-accident victims in return for lower insurance rates. He also
fought for procedural hurdles and caps on suits resulting from
Y2K failures.
Lieberman is also a top recipient of money from the drug
industry--$91,000 in this election. Pfizer, which operates a major
research facility in Connecticut, flew him on its corporate jet
to a lavish resort in West Virginia, where he spoke at a large
drug-company gathering in 1998. This treatment has not kept him
from pushing for prescription-drug benefits for Medicare
recipients--something the pharmaceutical firms fear will lead to
government control of their prices. But Lieberman helped pass an
amendment that prevented low-priced generic drugs from being made
available to consumers earlier; that has helped maintain billions
of dollars in sales for the brand-name producers. He also voted
to table an amendment that would have required manufacturers of
medical devices like syringes to be fully accurate in labeling.
And he voted to make it optional, rather than mandatory, for
producers of medical devices like pacemakers and artificial heart
valves to track the performance of their products after
implantation.
For the defense industry, which has given Lieberman $63,000 in
campaign cash this year, the Senator has used his seat on the
Armed Services Committee to foster production of the Navy Seawolf
submarine in Groton and land a $2.15 billion contract for a
tactical fighter whose Pratt & Whitney engine is built in
Hartford.
Of the pro-industry votes, Lieberman spokesman Dan Gerstein said,
"It's not a question of benefiting a company but protecting jobs
and economic interests [in Connecticut]. He votes in the best
interests of his constituents." --By Michael Weisskopf and Adam
Zagorin. With reporting by Douglas Waller
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