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A massive, well-funded misinformation campaign subsidized by South Carolina’s wealthy and powerful trial lawyer lobby could be having its intended effect on state lawmakers, sources in the S.C. General Assembly confirmed to FITSNews this week.
“They’re picking up votes,” a Republican senator who spoke with us on condition of anonymity confirmed Wednesday (February 26, 2025) afternoon.
The senator is referring to the current whip count on S. 244, a broad lawsuit reform bill advanced by S.C. Senate majority leader Shane Massey. The bill – backed by small business leaders and conservative reformers – is vigorously opposed by the state’s left-leaning trial lawyer lobby.
Recognizing the bill as an existential threat to their business model, trial lawyers have been pulling out all the stops in recent weeks… pillorying anyone who supports the legislation as being in the pocket of the insurance industry.
Trial lawyers have been playing defense in recent years after several high-profile wrongful death cases exposed the inherent unfairness of the state’s tort laws. Backed into a corner by Massey’s bill, they’ve come out guns-a-blazing.
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Massey has taken none too kindly to those broadsides… and has made it clear he plans on moving a robust reform bill through the Senate.
While trial lawyers have finally seized the initiative in this battle, the tactics they are employing to drive the debate continue to sow derision… most notably in the form of a newly created political organization, “Reform Insurance Now SC.” This group – a trial lawyer front group – launched a text message blitzkrieg earlier this week targeting multiple state senators.
“S. 244 is a massive handout to Big Insurance, letting them raise rates, deny claims and put corporate profits over people like us,” the texts alleged. “We need leaders who will push back against these special interests.”
The blitzkrieg featured multiple communications which included senators’ personal cell phone numbers.
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Lawmakers inherently frown upon such missives – especially when their personal cell phone numbers are included – but that wasn’t their real issue with this particular text bombardment. With iPhone notifications still ringing in their ears, senators immediately started connecting the dots behind the messages – and their underlying political motivation.
“This isn’t about tort reform,” one Senate staffer put it bluntly. “This is the House trying to make the Senate do its dirty work.”
The staffer is more right than they may know…
According to paperwork filed with the office of S.C. secretary of state Mark Hammond, the group responsible for these missives – Reform Insurance Now SC – was created earlier today (February 26, 2025) in Columbia, S.C. by a veteran political operative named Mike Green.
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A West Columbia, S.C. city councilman, Green is a longtime ally of Chris Slick – another veteran Palmetto political operative who has been one of the most outspoken advocates for the trial lawyer lobby this year. Green and Slick have collaborated on many dubious political operations in recent years – including one in the Upstate which recently came to our attention in connection with this issue.
Among other Palmetto State elected officials, Slick advises S.C. senator Josh Kimbrell – one of the key swing votes on S. 244. In fact, Kimbrell’s vote is among those the trial lawyer lobby has boasted of picking up in recent days.
Of interest? Green wrote on X earlier this month he was considering supporting Kimbrell’s bid for governor of South Carolina in 2026. This missive was posted just days after S. 244 was referred to a Senate subcommittee for debate.
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Curious timing, right?
Needless to stay, the trial lawyer lobby could dump a huge amount of cash into Kimbrell’s 2026 coffers were he to stand against Massey on the issue of tort reform.
Speaking of huge amounts of cash, trial lawyers spent heavily to procure the services of multiple MAGA social media accounts as part of their efforts to sink Massey’s bill – going so far as to generate a post on X from Donald Trump Jr. This MAGA messaging was doing a marvelous job, too… until the trial lawyers’ leader invoked her admiration for socialist U.S. senator Bernie Sanders during a recent hearing on the bill.
The connection to Slick is significant, though, as he is well-known in Palmetto political circles as a close confidant of S.C. House speaker Murrell Smith.
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“Chris Slick is all wound up in this messaging for the plaintiffs’ lawyers,” one attorney familiar with the tort reform battle lines told me this week. “Makes me wonder where the speaker is ultimately going to be when the House takes this up.”
And therein lies the proverbial rub…
Smith does his best to keep Slick at arm’s length – hoping for plausible deniability related to his various shenanigans – but he cannot disassociate himself from the oft-unhinged operative completely. For example, Slick’s starring role in last year’s ill-fated bid by Smith and his establishment allies to exorcise the conservative wing of the GOP from the S.C. House is common knowledge. That effort was a categorical failure – with the conservative S.C. Freedom Caucus actually picking up seats in the chamber during the 2024 GOP primary election.
At least $2 million was spent on the campaign… much of it by the trial lawyer lobby.
In other words, Smith owes the trial lawyers… but he’s hoping the Senate will either kill or neuter Massey’s bill before it lands in his chamber so he doesn’t have to do it himself (thus cementing the perception that he’s nothing but an errand boy for the trial lawyer lobby).
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RELATED | KNIVES OUT ON TORT REFORM
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Smith killed meaningful judicial selection reform last year… materially eroding public safety in the Palmetto State in the process. Is putting hundreds of small businesses out of business by guaranteeing massive pay days for plaintiffs’ attorneys really going to be his next move?
The bid to force the Senate’s hand also involves electoral calculus. Senators aren’t up for reelection for another three-and-a-half years, whereas Smith and his House colleagues must face GOP primary voters again in just fifteen months. Trial lawyers may say they’ll open the saddlebags (again) to protect their legislative allies, but after two consecutive years of heavy spending they’d probably rather not.
Accordingly, keeping the Senate from passing a tough tort reform bill is absolutely essential to their interests… on multiple levels.
Count on this media outlet to keep our audience abreast of the latest developments in this ongoing battle as S. 244 continues to make its way through the legislative process. Also, remember our media outlet has an open microphone policy – meaning anyone with an intelligent perspective on this matter is more than welcome to address our audience.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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5 comments
Trial lawyers do like their misinformation, that’s for sure.
The trial lawyers want to keep their racket that allows them to hoist a small company on the gallows for 1 or 2% fault to nonetheless pay +90% of a huge tort verdict in a hellhole judicial district. Meanwhile the small business has to raise prices to cover their massively expensive liability insurance policy (or go out of business), while their big corporate giant competitors that have massive war chests for litigation can just fold it into the cost of doing business. The citizens then pay higher prices on everything, lose businesses (especially in rural areas where the big corporations don’t really have a presence in anyway), and the rural areas just get poorer. Everyone gets screwed except the trial lawyers. This reform bill, after 40 years of failed attempts to change the system, MUST go through.
Slick is just another punk groupie living his life at the statehouse like he’s someone of importance. SC citizens will lose no matter if this bill passes or not simply because legislators refuse to represent the citizens the are supposed to.
Surely they can at least pass the House Dram Shop Bill with the modification to the 1% clause of Subsection F.
We need tort reform, but this bill has problems.