Smoke-Filled Rooms

HARD to imagine though it is from the perspective of 2008, the Senate’s passage in June 1998 of an amendment to lift any liability protection from the tobacco companies went almost unnoticed. It fell into even deeper obscurity when the first tobacco bill was defeated. Yet today we teach it in schools as an event comparable to the Boston Tea Party or the firing on Fort Sumter.

At the time conservative opponents of the amendment argued that it could drive the tobacco companies into bankruptcy. But one far-sighted law professor saw that that was its great advantage—and its potential to heal a division in the anti-tobacco coalition. On the one hand, the activists had long wanted to punish the tobacco companies; on the other, the politicians did not want to kill the geese that laid such golden fiscal eggs. How to square this circle?

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

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HARD to imagine though it is from the perspective of 2008, the Senate’s passage in June 1998 of an amendment to lift any liability protection from the tobacco companies went almost unnoticed. It fell into even deeper obscurity when the first tobacco bill was defeated. Yet today we teach it in schools as an event comparable to the Boston Tea Party or the firing on Fort Sumter.

At the time conservative opponents of the amendment argued that it could drive the tobacco companies into bankruptcy. But one far-sighted law professor saw that that was its great advantage—and its potential to heal a division in the anti-tobacco coalition. On the one hand, the activists had long wanted to punish the tobacco companies; on the other, the politicians did not want to kill the geese that laid such golden fiscal eggs. How to square this circle?