[Updates below.]

It'll be voted on during the September 13th constitutional amendment ballot. The link is a decent place to start looking for information.

I can't really decide what I feel towards it. The Austin Chronicle is against it, but that doesn't mean I am automatically for it. I have family that are firmly for it. However, as a previous comment I've left on Radley Balko's site says, I'm conflicted.

I certainly think irrational juries and judges are causing obivious direct and massive indirect damage to many industries and individuals who do not deserve huge damage awards against them. But I'm very leery of using a one-size-fits-all damage cap of $750,000 per claimant. I'm leery of using the state for most things, and having the legislative and executive branches intrude into the workings of the judicial is one of them.

I don't have too much time to think about this one and it doesn't make it any easier when there are 21 others to figure out.

UPDATE(8/30/2003 11:20am)
The Curmudgeonly Clerk has a link-packed post about this that gives a helpful and broad overview of the parties involved.

UPDATE(2:40pm)
I'm on the Travis County Libertarian Party's e-mail list and they released their endorsements of the constitutional amendments. Here's what it had to say about Prop 12:

Proposition 12 seems to be the most hotly contested amendment pitting medical and business groups against the trial lawyers and self-proclaimed consumer advocates. Proposition 12 would put a cap on non economic damages in civil cases. While the TCLP consensus was to oppose this proposition, as with many of the propositions, the opinions were not unanimous.

UPDATE(9/5/2003 6:58am)
More things to consider:

There is little evidence that patients are losing access to health care because doctors are paying more for medical malpractice insurance, according to a study by the investigative arm of Congress.

The General Accounting Office report issued last week appear to contradict one of the main arguments used by supporters of Proposition 12, a proposed constitutional amend- ment that would limit the amount of damages Texas juries can award in medical malpractice cases.

Proposition 12 supporters, including the Texas Medical Association and the state's Republican leadership, contend that lawsuit limits are needed to lower malpractice premiums. Without the caps, they say, Texas patients will suffer as doctors close or curtail their practices because they cannot afford the insurance rate increases.

But after studying nine states -- Texas not among them -- the accounting office found that increased premiums are causing no "widespread" loss of health care, including in five states that the American Medical Association have said are in "crisis."

UPDATE 9/24/2004 5:45pm
The Austin American-Statesman, Voting, Free Speech, and Information