Gregoire Gains National Stature In Tobacco Talks Her Poise, Patience, Tenacity Praised By Colleagues In Negotiations

Attorney General Christine Gregoire walked into the lobby bar at a plush hotel just down the road from Georgetown late Friday as a half-dozen attorneys general sipped microbrews and clinked champagne glasses over the $369 billion lawsuit settlement with the tobacco industry.

As Gregoire’s heels clicked from the marble onto the carpet, the attorneys general and their top-gun private lawyers stopped and broke into applause. Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, the lead prosecutor in the case who recruited Gregoire as a lead negotiator, gave her a hug. So did Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, who told her, “This one is yours.”

Largely unknown among her colleagues before this case, Gregoire won their esteem for her role in the landmark tobacco settlement. They praised her poise and patience, tenacity and endurance during the marathon talks that ended Friday.

Moore recruited Gregoire in early April when the chief executive officers of Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds wanted to talk settlement with the attorneys general. He admits he barely knew her then, but said he had a gut instinct: “I knew she was serious, focused, professional, bright and committed.”

Or, as attorney Richard Scruggs, who represented 20 states in the talks, said, “She’s the tiger lady.”

Scruggs, the lead private attorney for the plaintiffs, was so pleased with Gregoire’s work in the case that he sent a dozen red roses to her hotel room.

“She has great judgment and great courage and great insight into when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em,” Scruggs said. “Mike and I both are afraid of her, and we figured if we were afraid of her, they would be, too.”

As the negotiator in charge of setting regulations for nicotine and advertising, Gregoire helped write some of the most sweeping regulations, ranging from the banning of the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel to permitting the Food and Drug Administration to regulate nicotine in cigarettes - a provision a tobacco attorney called “a bitter pill.”

Gaining a reputation in the talks for her relentless attention to the wording of the agreement, she also helped negotiate and craft targets for cutting teen smoking - 42 percent in five years, 58 percent in seven years and 67 percent over a decade - and the penalties that would be associated if the targets were missed.

“She has incredible patience,” said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, “given the testiness and intensity of the talks at times.”

The deal is not final until it wins the approval of President Clinton, who has not given his endorsement yet, and Congress. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., said Friday, “Congress will not be bound by any privately negotiated settlement.”

Not everyone was so praiseworthy of the deal Gregoire helped craft.

Consumer activist Ralph Nader, who crashed a news conference announcing the settlement, blasted it for attempting to give away immunity from punitive damages to the tobacco industry. He derided Gregoire as a “former corporate lawyer who once represented Paul Allen,” the Microsoft co-founder.

John Garrison, chief executive officer for the American Lung Association, also doesn’t like the immunity from punitive damages and agrees with Nader that the attorneys general should have waited until they got more tobacco-industry records before settling.

And still, not everyone knows who Gregoire is.

She and several other attorneys general joined former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, now a tobacco lobbyist, for a meeting with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., on Wednesday to update him on a plan to fund a child-healthcare bill with tobacco-industry proceeds from the settlement.

“All of a sudden his (Kennedy’s) voice raised, and he started coming at Chris,” Indiana Attorney General Jeffrey Modisett said. “The tenor of his voice was such that Chris and I looked at each other, and we realized Sen. Kennedy thought she was with the tobacco industry. She was mortified.”

Gregoire, 50, has sought to be a high-profile attorney general since she entered office in 1993. Her key role in the tobacco talks gives her national stature that can help her if she pursues more prominent statewide or national office.