The Oklahoman: Up The (Amazon) River

Editorial In The Oklahoman ~ By taking fishing trips with his chums in the trial bar, Gov. Brad Henry makes himself an easy target for those who criticize his lack of leadership on lawsuit reform. That Henry's camp doesn't seem to understand that, or simply refuses to consider it, is troublesome.

Henry's spokesman was quick to pooh-pooh critics of the governor's latest outdoor adventure, to the Amazon River in Brazil, just as happened four years ago when Henry made a similar trip. "It's just a fishing trip,” spokesman Paul Sund said.

No, it's not just a fishing trip. Not when you're the governor of a state that is in bad need of lawsuit reform, and you just spiked a solid reform bill in the last legislative session, and now you're hanging out for several days with men who have benefited greatly from the status quo and are in no hurry to see any changes made.

Sund said the chartered trip was put together by attorney Terry West, a longtime Henry family friend and former president of the Oklahoma Trial Lawyers Association. West is one of three men on the trip who once ran the OTLA.

Twenty-four people made the trip, not all of them lawyers. So, the governor's office could say the trip was nothing but a vacation with friends, not a forum for business to be discussed. That was the standard line among those in the traveling party four years ago. It was a stretch then and would be now as well.

Henry has spent his five years in office talking a good game about the need for lawsuit reform. His actions have said even more — settling for small changes after promising "Texas-plus” reform in 2004, scuttling a good bill this year, floating the Amazon with trial lawyers. Sund said simply that Henry and West "share a common interest in hunting and fishing.” That's not all.

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