Jay Nixon Sold Out Missouri Employers for $400,000 in Campaign Cash

SAINT LOUIS, MO – The same mesothelioma attorneys who lined Jay Nixon’s pockets with over $400,000 in campaign donations were reminded today of the gift Jay Nixon gave them in return for their campaign cash. Earlier this year Jay Nixon vetoed a workers compensation bill that included a fix to occupational disease injuries that have been carved out of the system and aren’t subject to the same caps as other injuries.  Nixon vetoed the comprehensive workers compensation fix and today, with little fanfare, signed a scaled-down version.

“It’s unbelievable to me that Jay Nixon vetoed the comprehensive workers compensation bill because he received hundreds of thousands of dollars from personal-injury attorneys,” said Dave Spence.  “Missouri is fiftieth in the nation in job creation because Jay Nixon has made a habit of rewarding special interests with executive action in exchange for campaign contributions at the expense of job creators in Missouri.”

The original workers compensation bill clarified the issue of co-employee liability while also reforming how occupational disease litigation is handled in the state.  That bill had the support of the Missouri business community. “The legislation brings common-sense changes, so that co-employee liability and occupational disease can be handled by our workers’ compensation system, as has been the case for decades, and not be used as a new money stream for enterprising trial attorneys,” Dan Mehan, President/CEO, Missouri Chamber of Commerce, said in April.

Considering statistics that show the state is lagging behind 42 other states and had only 0.04% growth in 2011, one would think Jay Nixon would be fighting “every day for every job” in Missouri. It appears as though he’s fighting for every trial attorney’s job instead.