Even MORE evidence that the U.S. Chamber is Full of It
I recently wrote about how Mississippi passed a bunch of "reforms" but still rank near the bottom of the Chamber's list. Here's some additional evidence that the legal climate in a state isn't nearly as important to attracting new business as such old standbys like tax breaks and geographic location:
JFP: Most of the people I know, back in 2004 were really intrigued with the idea of tort reform because we were led to believe that our insurance rates would go down, but nobody that I can think of are bragging that their rates went down. I know mine havenҒt. Were we supposed to actually benefit from that or was tort reform aimed to benefit somebody else?
Ross: Mississippi has benefited. I gave you Toyota as an example. After we fixed our legal system, it was no longer an obstruction to them coming here.
Former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove told the JFP that the issue of the states legal climate never came up in numerous conversations he had with Toyota executives in 2003.
ғToyota was comfortable with our business climate, Musgrove said. ԓWe had passed significant tort reform in 2002, and the Toyota proposal came in 2003. It just was not an issue for them.
Toyota Senior VP, Dennis Cuneo said in a company press article that Toyota passed over Mississippi for an $800 million Toyota plant in 2003 because of a number of factors unconnected to the stateԒs legal climate.
According to Cuneo, one of the crucialӔ factors in the decision to pick San Antonio was the big money Texas committed to build two separate rail accesses for the plant. The state also committed $116 million in training and tax breaks for the plant.
Arkansas officialswho had also been competing for the plantחadmitted to the Associated Press in 2003 that Toyota executives told them that the plant in Texas would be a doorway to a virtually untapped market of pick-up truck buyers in Mexico and Latin America. Texas, itself, was the biggest market of pick-up sales in the nation, and Toyota was looking to seduce Texans with a new home team.
Finally, the legal climate in Texas, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was not so rosy at the time either, with Texas ranking No. 46 out of 50 in judicial fairness in February of 2003the same month that Toyota decided on San Antonio. (Emphasis added.)
Source: Mississippi StateDesk
Not sure why the formatting is goofy. But it's still not as goofy as the notion that the best way to attract new business is to gut your state's civil justice system.
Comments