Fighting for More Regulations Near You: Trial Lawyers Give 99 Percent of PAC Funds to Democrats

M ajor trial-lawyer PACs have spent $29 million — 99 percent of their total expenditure — to support Democratic candidates and aligned committees since 2017, the consumer-advocacy group Alliance for Consumers (AFC) revealed in a report released Wednesday.

In the report shared exclusively with National Review, AFC outlines the web of federal political action committees (PACs) funded by major trial lawyers, including the AAJ PAC, the Justice 2018–2024 PACs, and the Truth and Justice Fund Company. Altogether, since 2017, these PACs have put more than $10 million toward supporting Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, around $8 million more toward supporting Democratic candidates for the U.S. House, and substantial sums to support other major progressive entities.

The trial lawyers supporting Democratic candidates and causes enjoy a positive feedback loop: More regulations mean more tinder for lucrative lawsuits, and more Democrats in power mean more public contracts to represent plaintiffs in said lucrative lawsuits.

While there are certainly cases of corporate malpractice that must be litigated — and businesses that deserve to be sued — not every trial lawyer is Erin Brockovich. Trial law firms can claim they fight for justice while raking in multi-million (or even billion!) dollar settlements from corporations. Yet their fights lead to more Democrat-approved regulations on all sorts of goods and services.

O. H. Skinner, the executive director of AFC, told National Review: “Trial lawyers aren’t bad because they’re greedy. They’re bad when their lawsuits try to take things off store shelves or when they try to push Green New Deal substitutes.” In other words, expensive lawsuits are underneath every regulation that makes your dishwasher, car, yard tools, and washing machine less effective.

The top offender on AFC’s list of “Shady Trial Lawyer PACs” is the American Association for Justice Political Action Committee, or AAJ PAC. According to the PAC’s website, “AAJ PAC is a federal political action committee that supports the races of pro-civil justice candidates and incumbents from both sides of the political aisle.” While the site claims that “AAJ PAC is nonpartisan, and the PAC’s giving is bipartisan,” AFC’s report reveals that 98 percent of the disbursements to candidates and committees that AAJ PAC disclosed from 2017 through the end of 2024 benefited Democrats and their allies.

In this period, AAJ PAC put over $21.5 million to work in support of political candidates and committees — with over $21 million of that going to liberal efforts. AAJ PAC sent seven figures to progressive entities such as America Votes and the Senate Majority PAC (which is affiliated with Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer). The PAC also sent at least $750,000 to Priorities USA Action, $600,000 to the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and American Bridge 21st Century, and $500,000 to Emily’s List. Because AAJ PAC gives a nominal amount to “Republican” causes and candidates, they can profess bipartisanship. As they proclaim on their site, “AAJ PAC contributes over $5.5 million every 2-year campaign cycle to candidates who stand with you to ensure Americans have their day in court.”

In reality, AAJ PAC — along with the other “Shady Trial Lawyer PACs” identified by AFC — contributes nearly 99 percent of its funds to Democrats who in turn help trial lawyers sue businesses that Democrats don’t like, especially energy, agricultural, and pharmaceutical companies.

AAJ’s advocacy research reports hint at the organization’s true political leanings, with titles such as “Where White Men Rule: How the Secretive System of Forced Arbitration Hurts Women and Minorities” and “Hazardous to Your Health: How the Civil Justice System Holds Corporate Polluters Accountable.” AAJ was also on the frontline of advocating for Covid-19 shutdowns, under the guise of keeping workers “safe” and holding corporations “accountable.” In other words, AAJ fought to hold business, schools, and universities liable if their employees contracted Covid-19 on the job, a move which helped keep them closed for years (or shuttered them entirely).

AAJ boasts on its website that its members won a $2.25 billion verdict amount for a man who claimed to have developed cancer from using Roundup in his yard work. However, Bayer (which owns Roundup) contested the excessive number, and the verdict amount was knocked down to $400 million. This case is just one of 22 since 2018, each alleging that Roundup is responsible for the plaintiffs developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma. So far, the verdicts have been mixed, but the majority of jurors across the country have ruled in favor of the defense (i.e., Roundup).

Although the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, has been approved by both the EPA and the EU Commission for herbicide use — and even the New York Times has offered a nuanced view of the health effects of the much-maligned product — the growing number of trial lawsuits against Roundup has led Bayer to pull the product from retail shelves. While glyphosate-based Roundup is still used in commercial practice, residential consumers can only access a new formula of Roundup that is glyphosate-free (and lingers longer in the soil) due to the costly lawsuits against the original product.

Now, obviously, Roundup is a toxic chemical, such as Clorox bleach and rat poison. The question is: Should the consumer have the choice to use it? The pattern displayed in the Roundup example is archetypical of the consequences of an ultra-litigious environment that feeds off (Democratic-supported) regulations. Consumer choice decreases as liability lawsuits block out the sun. Products are pulled from the shelves or made less effective as businesses seek to avoid further litigation.

Certainly, there are cases where businesses should be taken to court for poisoning the groundwater, recklessly endangering employees, using unauthorized chemicals in products, etc. However, due to the beneficial relationship trial lawyers (and their PACs) share with Democratic causes, most trial lawsuits only back progressive issues.

“The vast majority of the trial lawyers in America are 99 percent committed to supporting Democrats for higher office,” Skinner told National Review. “They give financially to Democrats at the federal level, and they back groups that are partners with progressive hubs like the Human Rights Campaign. . . . These trial lawyers are on board with the Democratic agenda in their political donations and in their trade associations’ political donations. They will never be against that team.”

In other words, ExxonMobil is more likely to be sued for causing global warming than a hospital is likely to be challenged for performing gender reassignment surgery on a minor. Retailers are more likely to be sued for using plastic bags than a school is likely to be opposed for shutting down in-person class while charging full tuition. The side effects of abortion pills have killed more women than we can know, yet trial lawyers have not chased after Danco Laboratories, the maker of Mifeprex (the brand name chemical abortifacient).

Ultimately, Skinner told NR, “These trial lawyers are not in it for a buck. They’re in it for a buck and for their team.”