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The Curious Case of George McGovern

By Joe Consumer

Yesterday, I received a direct mail piece on behalf of an outstanding and vital organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center.  The SPLC, based in Montgomery, Alabama, is a legendary civil rights organization, renowned for fighting hate groups and dismantling them, i.e. bankrupting them, with large civil jury verdicts.   We can?t imagine a more important function for the civil jury system than crippling hate groups.

SPLC is also well known for very effective direct mail fundraising, and this letter looked pretty interesting so I opened it. 

Why so interesting?  Well, right there on the envelope it said in large letters ?George McGovern, Missoula, Montana.?  Sure enough, SPLC had gotten George McGovern to sign its direct mail piece, touting the group's monumental verdicts that have ?crippled or bankrupted a dozen hate groups? like the ?$7 million verdict against the United Klans,? and the ?$2.5 million verdict against the leaders of the Imperial Klans of America.?  And now, I was really confused. 

For those who are younger than, say, 50, you may not remember George McGovern, the former Senator from South Dakota who was the anti-war Democratic presidential candidate running against Richard Nixon in 1972.  Still outspoken against the Iraq war and a strong advocate for addressing child hunger and poverty, George McGovern is what you might call a progressive?s progressive. 

Sounds like a perfect match for the SPLC.  Except for one little thing.  George McGovern has allowed himself to be used by one of the most anti-lawyer, anti-civil jury organizations in the nation, called Common Good.  In fact, he?s on its Advisory Board.  This group?s founder and intellectual leader - a corporate lawyer name Philip K. Howard (see his writings all over their site) has made a career of attacking laws, regulations, lawyers and lawsuits.  His most recent book, Life Without Lawyers, says it all.  As ThePopTort?s Andy Hoffman wrote in his review of this book:

In schoolyard terms, according to Howard, Americans have become a bunch of rule-following wusses, more concerned with staying out of trouble than "doing what?s right." The antidote? Tearing off the shackles of wussiness by doing away with rules, regulations, and most importantly, those pesky plaintiffs? attorneys who might be inclined to enforce them.

Workplace discrimination lawsuits should be prohibited, says Howard, unless the employer discriminated against minorities as a group, not just against an individual.  That?s because in Howard?s world, allowing single plaintiff suits might result in a "chilled" work environment that would stifle "open interaction" between the races. Apparently, for Howard, it isn?t racism, but lawsuits that create society?s obstacles to "real integration."

Do not ask me why George McGovern is on the Board of this group, membership of which he shares with Newt Gingrich.  I suspect he probably has no honest idea either.  But don?t think Common Good and Phil Howard do not exploit his name at every opportunity.   

If George McGovern isn?t aware of this conflict, I?m hoping someone at the SPLC is.  Linking oneself to a group that has contempt for plaintiffs? attorneys and thinks juries are too dumb to handle cases cannot be helpful.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on July 20, 2010 (boomark / email).