SUGGESTION: LET'S HOLD HEARINGS ON THE TOBACCO-LAWYER DEAL

The State of Missouri and its citizens are the attorney general's clients and, through their duly elected representatives in the General Assembly, they may control the payment arrangement provided in the Master Settlement Agreement, regardless of whether the funds come from the state treasury. -- Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White, writing for a unanimous court in the case of Kinder vs. Nixon on the issue of contingent fees to be paid to Nixon's hand-picked tobacco attorneys, Dec. 12, 2000.

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"The wheels of justice grind slow and exceedingly fine," goes the old chestnut. Still, through the 28 months since this writer filed Kinder vs. Nixon, and through much depletion of my campaign account to pay lawyer's fees, this one was worth waiting for. As the late Jackie Gleason used to put it, "Hooowwww sweeeet it is!"

After reviewing the law and concluding that the attorney general has the power to hire assistant attorneys general on a contingent-fee basis, the high court tossed this bouquet to the men and women of the General Assembly:

"In this case, which involves payment of the state's attorney fees by the defendants and which is thus subject to the consent requirement of Rule 4-1.8(f), the General Assembly can revoke that power and withhold its consent as the client by enacting legislation that forbids the attorney general from entering into the fee arrangement or otherwise provide an alternative mechanism for compensating the special assistant attorneys general."

The entire theory of the court's holding is that the state owns the whole cause of action. Laymen should understand the practical effect: All the money to be paid by the tobacco companies -- including the millions in fees to be paid these lawyers through the famous side agreement -- is the property of the state. Through action this coming year, lawmakers may pass legislation to access this entire honey pot and out of it, to appropriate a reasonable fee to these lawyers, plus expenses they can document.

Herewith, a modest proposal: Let's hold hearings. Let Nixon and his hand-picked lawyer contributors come before the peoples' elected representatives to justify their fees. Let's agree on some panel -- say, three retired judges, I'll even give you one Republican and two Democrats -- to audit their bills and report to us senators and representatives, to the news media and the people in whose name they sued.

No one is saying the attorneys shouldn't be paid, least of all me. What I have said all along is that this cozy little lawyers' deal would line the pockets of favored contributors of the attorney general to the tune of millions. Now a unanimous high-court panel, lopsidedly Democrat, its opinion written by Missouri's first African American Supreme Court judge, agrees. Jay Nixon, call your office.

My friend Wayne Goode, the distinguished Democrat who chairs the state Senate's Appropriations Committee, is warning of an extremely tight budget year, with the latest Hancock decision threatening a $244 million hole in Gov.-elect Bob Holden's budgetary bucket. Here's a big part of the answer: Let's access the tobacco money. All of it.

Which shall it be? The schoolchildren of Missouri, or our prosperous friends in the trial bar? Your move, Mr. Holden.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.