A nasty story, “Abbott Faces Questions on Turnabout and Fair Play,” out of the New York Times, is the kind of thing that has all of us who don’t live in texas pulling our hair out because we have no way of voting against this guy. (Texas has sunk so low as a state constitutionally united with most of us, from now on demote it to “texas.”)
His name is Greg Abbott. He is running for governor of Texas. Abbott gets around in a wheelchair, because of an awful accident years ago that semi-paralyzed him. He sued over that accident. He won.
When Greg Abbott’s spine was crushed by a falling oak tree in 1984, he had no health insurance and no paycheck. But he had a good lawyer and access to a civil justice system that — back then — was generally hospitable toward plaintiffs. So Mr. Abbott sued.
Nearly 30 years later, as Texas attorney general and the leading candidate for governor, Mr. Abbott is facing new questions about the multimillion-dollar settlement he was awarded and about his advocacy of laws that critics say have tilted the judicial scales toward civil defendants.
Those critics, generally Democrats who oppose the Republican-backed lawsuit curbs, say the policies Mr. Abbott has fiercely promoted over his career as a judge and elected official make it virtually impossible for a plaintiff to win the kind of award he got.
Abbott reminds me of Clarence Thomas: once he took advantage of the prevailing laws, the hell with everybody else.