This is Part Two of ``The Attack of the Stock Swindlers.'' Their first initiative, Proposition 201, attacks your pension and retirement savings by preventing you from holding swindlers responsible and getting your money back.
Proposition 202 limits the Contingent Fees of the lawyers for consumers and people with savings or retirement funds.
What are Contingent Fees?
Are those the big fees that celebrity criminal lawyers get paid? No.
Does Proposition 202 limit those fees? No.
Are those the big fees that corporation lawyers got when they defended the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill? No.
Does Proposition 202 limit those fees? No.
Are those the big fees that drunk drivers pay their attorneys to get them off? No.
Does Proposition 202 limit those fees? No.
Are those the big fees the lawyers got for defending Charles Keating and the Lincoln Savings and Loan rip-off? No.
Does Proposition 202 limit those fees? No.
Are those the big fees that insurance companies pay their lawyers to drag out cases for years delaying payment of valid claims? No.
Does Proposition 202 limit those fees? No.
Are those the big fees that the lawyers got for defending the producers of flammable pajamas, defective heart valves, or exploding automobiles? No.
Does Proposition 202 limit those fees? No.
Well then, what are the Contingent Fees that are limited under Proposition 202? And who are Contingent Fee Attorneys?
Contingent Fee Attorneys are the consumers' lawyers who get unsafe automobiles off the road, protect people's retirement savings from investment frauds, and force polluters to pay for cleaning up their poisonous waste.
Contingent Fee attorneys only get paid when consumers recover their money.
Contingent Fee consumer attorneys are not very popular on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley Board Rooms because they fight against investment fraud schemes, insider stock trading, pension ripoffs and toxic pollution.
Much of the money behind Proposition 202 comes from those Silicon Valley Executives and Wall Street Corporations that have had to pay to settle lawsuits in which they were accused of cheating small investors.
But these corporate executives know that lawyers aren't popular with voters. So these executives figure they can get you to vote with them, and limit your lawyer, not theirs.
This initiative only limits people who can't afford to pay a lawyer up front. It doesn't limit the hourly fees the corporations or insurance companies or the Charles Keatings pay their lawyers . . . $300 per hour. Or more.
So how will ordinary people protect themselves and their families from drunk drivers and greedy manufacturers . . . and how will they protect their savings and retirement funds from unscrupulous speculators if they can't pay a lawyer by the hour? They won't be able to.
That's the point. It's why modern day stock swindlers want Propositions 201 and 202 to pass.
Say ``No'' to them. Vote ``NO'' on Propositions 201 and 202.
CANDACE LIGHTNER
Founder, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
HARVEY ROSENFIELD
Director, Foundation For Taxpayer and
Consumer Rights