FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Lucy Nashed
December 18, 2015
lu**@to********.com
(Houston, TX) Texans for Lawsuit Reform Political Action Committee is proud to announce its endorsement of Texas Speaker Joe Straus. Straus represents House District 121 in San Antonio where he is running for re-election. Speaking for the TLRPAC Board, Richard W. Weekley said:
“Speaker Straus has supported tort reform throughout his public career, recognizing that a fair, balanced and predictable civil justice system is a key component to a strong economy that helps create jobs for all Texans and opportunities for small businesses. During his Speakership, Joe Straus has shown leadership in critical battles to prevent any erosion of civil justice reforms and to enact legislation to curb new litigation abuses.”
Weekley detailed Speaker Straus’s leadership on lawsuit reform issues over the past decade:
• As a member of the Texas House in 2005, Straus supported the landmark reforms that curtailed abusive asbestos and silica lawsuits – which
The Wall Street Journal called “The Great Asbestos Scam” – in which lawsuits “were manufactured for money,” according to U.S. District Judge Janis Jack. Under Straus’s leadership as Speaker, the legislature has continued to take steps to rein in persistent asbestos litigation abuse, including an important law enacted in 2015 to prevent fraud in making claims to special trusts established to compensate persons harmed by asbestos exposure.
• Straus’s leadership was also critical in passing maritime venue reforms in 2007, which closed a venue loophole that had created an avalanche of abusive lawsuits in South Texas. Those lawsuits threatened to shut down dredging in Texas, which would have crippled Texas’s vitally important maritime industry. In addition to rallying support, the Speaker personally took the Chair during the floor debate to assure that the bill did not fall victim to parliamentary attacks from legislators allied to the personal injury trial lawyers.
• In 2009, Speaker Straus helped stop a barrage of pro-lawsuit legislation proposed by personal injury trial lawyers that would have rolled back tort reforms and undermined important Texas Supreme Court decisions.
• In 2011, Speaker Straus made both the Omnibus Tort Reform Bill and the Texas Windstorm Insurance Agency (TWIA) reforms a priority. Importantly, the Omnibus Tort Reform bill included a fee-shifting “Loser Pays” provision. The Texas Windstorm Insurance Agency (TWIA) reforms improved claims processing and stopped the outrageously excessive attorney fees that were bankrupting that quasi-state agency.
TLRPAC is the political arm of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the state’s largest civil justice reform organization. TLR is a bipartisan, volunteer-led coalition with more than 17,000 supporters residing in 818 Texas communities and representing 1,266 different businesses, professions and trades. Follow us on Facebook and twitter @tlrpac.
www.tlrpac.com.
Pol. Adv. Paid for by Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC
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Pol. Adv. paid for by Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC
