Tort reform targeted trial lawyers because they financed the Democratic Party.

Evidence

[I]t happened in the ’80s that the major financing of the Democratic Party in Texas … began to be done by trial lawyers. If you looked at the biggest givers to the Texas Democratic Party in the ’80s and the ’90s, you would see at the top of that list trial lawyers. So [tort reform] became this giant pitched battle, because it wasn’t just necessarily about the kind of verdicts and the ease with which someone might get a verdict for a plaintiff, but it was also about the back end, which was the financing of the entire Democratic Party. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 269

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s stated purpose on rationalizing ideologies embedded in law — tort reform as a durable structural lever on opposition financing rather than a rhetorical appeal. — connects to: Tort reform both defunded Democrats and mobilized Republican funders. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 276; Partisan defunding incentives partly drove Republican adoption of tort reform — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 263

Broader Connections

• Tort reform both defunded Democrats and mobilized Republican funders. #expands (0.90) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 276
• Partisan defunding incentives partly drove Republican adoption of tort reform #corroborates (0.90) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 263