KINDER QUESTIONS $479 MILLION DEAL FOR LAWYERS

State Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, wants to know why Missouri's attorney general paid 48 private tobacco lawyers $479 million in legal fees instead of allowing the Legislature to allocate money from a tobacco settlement.

Kinder held a press conference Tuesday afternoon in St. Louis to ask Gov. Mel Carnahan to disclose all records indicating payments made to the attorneys and details of the work they had completed.

He also said the deal seemed to be a payoff for the attorneys who were paid directly by the tobacco companies instead of allowing the money to come through the Legislature for allocation.

Kinder has filed a lawsuit challenging the Attorney General Jay Nixon's right to allocate the tobacco settlement money without approval from the Legislature. A decision on the case is pending in the Missouri Court of Appeals.

Missouri is one of 45 states seeking compensation from tobacco companies for allegedly higher health-care costs caused by smoking-related illnesses.

Missouri's share of the settlement is $6.7 billion. Missouri is one of four states that has not settled all legal challenges to the tobacco settlement; the money remains in escrow.

Five months before signing a settlement agreement with the tobacco companies, Nixon hired a Springfield attorney to handle the state's case. The agreement between Tom Strong and Nixon's office is worth 7 percent of the state's settlement, Kinder said.

Kinder thinks the money is a "payoff to the lawyers for past political contributions."

Allowing the settlement money to go to the lawyers comes "with the implicit understanding that some of this money will be donated back to political campaigns," Kinder said.