As of now, all class action lawsuits must go through the federal courts.

The Bushies may be sorry they made this change, because a very big class action is likely to head their way very soon.

The action will be against ChoicePoint, which managed to sell 145,000 credit dossiers to criminal gangs.

That's a big class. Every single victim may have had their identity stolen, either now or sometime later. At minimum, each victim faces a daunting task to re-establish their identity, and the impact of this theft is likely to follow them for years.

That's what lawyers call an actionable tort.

So far only one lawsuit has been filed, an individual suit in California. Expect many more.

The press coverage of this scandal has, so far, been horrendous. Most stories, like CNN's, act like the victims here somehow did something wrong.

They didn't. This was a deliberate act by a company too greedy to take proper care. They deserve whatever the legal system can dish out -- which right now is a lot less than it was a few weeks ago.

And that's the problem.

If people are unable to get justice in this matter, they're going to be mad. And they're going to tell friends. And those friends vote.

It's highly unlikely that all the victims here were inclined to support the Democratic Party. Peoples' politics are going to be turned upside-down when they see they've been denied justice.

Folks refused to heed the warnings, and now they're being denied justice, while the company that did this to them gets off scot-free.

They are not going to like that.

Of course, there could be a different result. A federal class action could be filed. ChoicePoint could be punished, as drug companies have been in the past. ChoicePoint could be ruined. And a precedent will be set, that it doesn't matter where the filing is made if the cause of action is clear, companies are going to get it.

Then all the people who pushed this law are mad.

Take your pick. You can go east of the rock or west of the hard place.