Texas Politics

Davis Ad: Abbott, despite wheelchair didn’t help other victims


 

 

Wendy Davis’s TV ad with a shot of a wheelchair sparked a firestorm – including a blast from the Greg Abbott campaign, calling it “disgusting.”

But Abbott, a paraplegic since a tree fell on him while jogging in 1984, was the guy who opened the door to the wheelchair discussion. He featured himself in a wheelchair in two recent ads in his Republican bid for governor.

One shows him working his way up the ramps of a parking garage in his wheelchair, showcasing his determination to deal with a life without the use of his legs. He told the Austin American- Statesman editorial board that the ad was “to demonstrate to Texans that I was able to bring that very same fortitude to addressing the challenges that Texans face.”

The other shows him in his wheelchair beside a barely moving lane of traffic on a highway overpass, saying that even “a guy in a wheel chair can move faster than traffic on some roads in Texas.” Abbott says it’s time the Legislature spends on highways all the taxes supposedly earmarked for that purpose. (What he doesn’t say is that some of it now funds the Department of Public Safety.)

So the campaign of Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor, used the wheelchair shot as a backdrop to charge that while Abbott had gotten millions in his settlement, he has sided with companies against victims in three other cases while on the Texas Supreme Court and as attorney general.

In one, Abbott’s office argued a woman who suffered an amputated leg wasn’t disabled, because she had an artificial limb.

In another, he said a door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales company wasn’t to blame for not doing background checks on their employees, one of them a sexual predator who raped a woman in her home. The Texas Supreme Court majority ruled in the woman’s favor. In the third, he “sided with a hospital that failed to stop a dangerous surgeon who paralyzed patients,” the ad charges.

“Greg Abbott,” the narrator concludes. “He’s not for you.”

It’s a gutsy move, akin to a Hail Mary pass into the end zone by a football team down by a touchdown in the final seconds of a game.

The Davis campaign, noting that a recent public poll showed her just six points behind Abbott, obviously hopes to undermine the sympathy for Abbott’s confinement to a wheel chair by charging that he hasn’t had the same compassion for others.

On the other hand, her campaign risks that the ad may backfire, turning off voters as being too harsh “It is challenging to find language strong enough to condemn Sen. Davis’ disgusting television ad,” said Abbott campaign spokeswoman Amelia Chasse. “Sen. Davis’ ad shows a disturbing lack of judgment from a desperate politician, and completely disqualifies her from seeking higher office in Texas.”

Davis spokesman Zac Petrankas said Abbott “rightly sought justice after a horrible tragedy.”

But, Petrankas said, the Davis ad also “raises some very serious questions about Greg Abbott and whether (voters) want someone in the governor’s office who would seek justice and then spend their career denying justice to others.” • • • Tort Law Changes . . . . This Davis ad doesn’t mention that Abbott endorsed tort law changes that make it more difficult to sue multiple defendants, as he had.

Abbott won money from insurers for both the tree company that had worked on the tree that fell on him, and the wealthy homeowner.

Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg wrote on Sept. 6, 2013 that she asked Abbott why he supported damage caps in medical malpractice cases in light of his own $10 million-plus liability settlement.

He contended that someone suffering an injury like his today “could have access to the very same remedies I had access to,” Falkenberg wrote.

“Only,” she added, “that’s not true.”

Falkenberg said Houston personal injury lawyer Don Riddle told her that the tort laws have become much more complicated and less generous to plaintiffs than when Abbott won his settlement.

“Today, a claimant would not have the same benefits because they’d be limited by the new joint and several liability limitations,” said Riddle.

He’s the lawyer who represented Abbott in the liability case.

• • •

There are plenty of other things on which Davis and Abbott differ.

She’s for a $10.10 minimum wage. He’s against it.

She’s for mandated equal pay for women for equal work. He’s against it.

She’s for Texas expanding Medicaid, which the feds would pay for, and would insure more than a million additional people, and create 300,000 jobs. He’s against it.

She believes a woman in the early stages of pregnancy should be able to decide with her doctor and family, whether to terminate the pregnancy. Abbott thinks pregnancies should not be terminated, even in cases involving rape and incest.

Texans will at least certainly have a choice.

DAVE MCNEELY is a political columnist. You may contact him at davemcneely111@ gmail or (512)458 2963.


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