Mike Ciresi has achieved tremendous victories in the courtroom for women, Minnesota, Minnesota companies, the people of India and many more. Now he wants to add one more achievement to this impressive list, beat Norm Coleman in November of 2008 in the MN-SEN race. He challenged Mark Dayton for the DFL endorsement back in 2000, but couldn't quite pull it off. He thinks that 2008 is his year. I met with Mike and Leslie Sandberg, his Communications Director, at Louisiana Cafe in Saint Paul last Friday to talk about his campaign over breakfast.

Achievements

The Dalkon Shield was a intrauterine contraceptive device.

By the spring of 1974, A. H. Robins had received more than 400 complaints. Women often fainted from the pain of insertion. Many experienced cramping, bleeding, and infections that resulted in hysterectomies or sterility. Women who conceived despite wearing the device suffered a 60 percent miscarriage rate, often coupled with life-threatening blood infections. The remaining pregnancies resulted in premature births and severe birth defects.
(Answers.com)

Mike's law firm, Robins, Miller, Kaplan and Ciresi LLP was the only midwestern firm approached about taking the Dalkon Shield case, the rest were east or west coast firms. He was the lead attorney and won a $2.5 billion trust for the victims.

In 1984, a Union Carbide subsidiary released 27 tons of poisonous gases into the middle of Bhopal India, a city of more than a million people. An estimated 22,000 people died in the catastrophe and countless thousands were injured. Union Carbide denied any culpability and attempted to hide behind its subsidiary. Mike's firm was selected to represent the government of India against Union Carbide. He won a $350 million settlement in US courts for the victims which established a fund which is now probably worth around $600 million or more. Furthermore, Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million in damages.

In 1991, Honeywell sued Minolta over camera autofocus technology. This was a landmark case in intellectual property rights.

Honeywell attorney Michael Ciresi called the autofocus technology "the holy grail of the camera industry" and said Minolta was unable to master it until after it signed a contract with Honeywell. The contract involved the two companies sharing data about a Honeywell autofocus module in exchange for an agreement that the part would be included in cameras Minolta manufactured. Ciresi told the court that the team working on the Minolta autofocus system and the one reviewing Honeywell's technology shared the same work space and the same people worked on both teams.
(Washington Post)

Minolta eventually settled for $127.5 million. Other manufacturers also settled for an estimated $500 million.

In 1994, Minnesota became the second state to sue Big Tobacco and he was the lead attorney after millions and millions of pages of secret documents were released to the public. These documents showed how Big Tobacco hid the addictive nature of cigarettes and how they marketed them to children.

"The evidence will show this is a renegade industry which has placed profit ahead of the health of its customers," attorney Michael Ciresi said in his opening statement.

"Marlboro has risen to its No. 1 position on the backs of America's youth," he said. Cigarette companies "treated America's youth as a commodity, as a source of replacement smokers."

The industry documents will prove that the industry conspired to conceal what it knew about the hazards of smoking as early as the 1950s, Ciresi said.
(USAToday)

Big Tobacco settled in 1998 for $6 billion.

Why Mike Ciresi?

"It's a case of talk versus walk," he explained. "What have they [his opponents for the DFL endorsement] done? I've fought for women injured by the Dalkon Shield, I've fought Big Tobacco and Union Carbide. What have they achieved."

If you want someone who is a proven fighter for the people of Minnesota, Mike Ciresi might be your man. He's articulate, direct and intelligent. Actually, we're blessed with an abundance of smarts on the DFL side and Ciresi has proven his guile and craft. He's been in the middle of a number of precedent setting cases. He now wants to translate his legal experience into politics. He likely can. His broad range of cases indicate that he can work in any legal area. But where does he stand on the issues that are important to progressives?

Iraq War

"The Iraq War has destabilized the Middle East," began Mike when I asked him about his position on Iraq. "The Bush Administration's war has cost us international prestige. It was wrong. We need to get out as soon as possible. We need to have an international peace conference to begin dealing with the mess the Bush Administration has created. We need to beef up our special ops and begin dealing with the terrorists in Afghanistan who attacked us on 9/11."

"Guantanamo Bay needs to be closed," he continued. "We can no longer be taken seriously when we talk about democracy, freedom and rule of law. Gitmo is one of the worst examples of what the Bush Administration has done to our prestige. The intelligence community and the military both say that we don't get good information out of there. It's accepted that torturing prisoners harms our reputation, endangers our troops even further and damages our standing in the international community. Gitmo needs to close and we need to stop torturing enemy combatants."

He then brought up the concept of what we could do if we had spent the $500 billion we've already spent on the Iraq War on education. "We could pay for every child's K12 education and have paid for a 4 year college education for every single student in the US. That would definitely make a difference in people's lives."

Habeas Corpus

Mike believes we need to restore habeas corpus and supports the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act that is currently making its way through Congress.

Terrorism

Mike believes that there are latent terrorist cells in the US. We need to beef up our FBI counter-terrorism efforts.

Healthcare

Mike is not in favor of single payer universal healthcare. "Currently, we don't have a healthcare system," he explained. "We need to focus on preventative care and guarantee universal health insurance coverage. It needs to be portable and so does your medical information. Pre-existing conditions must be covered no matter what. Insurance companies always pick the healthiest and youngest first then the older and healthy. They grant coverage to people with pre-existing conditions last if at all. This is wrong."

"At the law firm," he continued. "We pay roughly $11,000 per year for each employees insurance and $8,500 per dependent. Coverage for an employee runs $200 per month for just the employee. This does not include medication and dental benefits; they're additional expenses. The costs are increasing at double digits every year and we need to get it under control. We need to let the states innovate. They will find solutions that best fit them."

He wants Medicare to negotiate for cheaper drug prices for senior citizens.

Impeachment

"No," stated Mike when I asked about impeachment. "We need to address the issues not chase guys who will be out of office in 18 months anyway. It would be a distraction and I'm not for it."

Renewable Energy

I ran out of time, I had to get to work. Mike is out of town campaigning, but Leslie Sandberg assured me she'd get me a statement on Renewable Energy.

Odds n Ends

On topic that didn't really fit into anywhere above is the Bush Administration's insidious efforts to install right wing political hacks at every level of government, but shows the depth to which Mike understands the horrible state our country is in. "Until this administration, America has had a consistent focus on multilateral diplomacy," Mike claimed. "It has been fostered by the civilian employees throughout all levels of government. In effect these nonpartisan employees provide a steady hand at the wheel of the state. Since 2000 the Bush Administration has been yanking out these roots and installing loyal Bushies who have undermined these roots and helped destroy our standing in the international community."