Recently in Politics II Category

Via Kaus, I'm pleased to see someone making this issue crystal-clear:

Earlier on POL: Jan. 24; Jun. 21; Feb. 2, 2007.

The presumptive GOP nominee has announced a list of 45 or so names; the academic contingent encouragingly includes Profs. Volokh, Calabresi, Rotunda, McGinnis, and Kerr. (Hotline, May 6). More: the Obama campaign responds (via Kerr @ Volokh):

The Straight Talk Express took another sharp right turn today as John McCain promised his conservative base four more years of out-of-touch judges that would threaten a woman's right to choose, gut the campaign finance reform that bears his own name, and trample the rights and interests of the American people. Barack Obama has always believed that our courts should stand up for social and economic justice, and what's truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves.

Norm Pattis (here and here) and Scott Greenfield (here) have some highly interesting coverage of the efforts of the colorful Michigan lawyer and his defense lawyer, Gerry Spence, to turn his trial on charges of contribution-laundering into a trial of the feds' efforts to "get" him.

... and violate campaign-finance law:

Parker North is a cluster of about 300 houses close to the town of Parker. When two residents proposed a vote on annexation of their subdivision to Parker, six others began trying to persuade the rest to oppose annexation. They printed lawn signs and fliers, started an online discussion group and canvassed neighbors, little knowing that they were provoking Colorado's speech police.

One proponent of annexation sued them. This tactic -- wielding campaign finance regulations to suppress opponents' speech -- is common in the America of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. The complaint did not just threaten the Parker Six for any "illegal activities." It also said that anyone who had contacted them or received a lawn sign might be subjected to "investigation, scrutinization and sanctions for campaign finance violations."

(George Will, "The Speech Police Tackle a Subdivision", syndicated/Washington Post, Apr. 27).

I'm all in favor of traffic court judges being fair to defendants, but was this one pledging to be more than fair?

Philadelphia Traffic Court Judge Willie F. Singletary was elected in November despite having had his driver's license suspended until 2011 for accumulating $11,427.50 in fines for 55 traffic tickets.

Now Singletary is in danger of losing his three-month-old robe - and the $82,733-a-year paycheck that goes with it - for a campaign appearance videotaped and made public on the YouTube Internet site.

It was an appearance that raised $285 for his campaign.

The state Judicial Conduct Board filed five misconduct counts against him Tuesday for an April 22, 2007, campaign appearance in which he pressed a group of motorcyclists for campaign donations.

"You're all going to need me in Traffic Court, am I right about that?" he asked the group.

(Joseph A. Slobodzian, "Traffic court judge may lose his seat", Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 24)(via ABA Journal)

Tort Deform is the effort of trial lawyers to undo successful civil justice reforms, even naming a blog after the concept. ATRA has a new report out, "Defrocking Tort Deform," listing some of the pending state legislation on the issue. Related: my April Liability Outlook on revivers and retroactive lawsuits.

We've previously covered the Senate's boon to trial lawyers at the expense of consumers and shareholders, the Consumer Product Safety Commission Act, S. 2663: Feb. 20; Feb. 25; Mar. 5. (The bill was amended somewhat since we complained but Democrats, on a party line vote, tabled critical amendments to prohibit the use of contingent-fee attorneys and permit prevailing parties to recover attorneys' fees.) The House passed a somewhat more sensible version of the bill unanimously, but Pelosi, for some reason, is trying to bypass her chamber's proponents in constructing the "conference committee" that will work out the differences between the bills in favor of those of trial lawyers. Today's Washington Examiner has the unholy details.

Education expert Jay Greene, a colleague of mine at the Manhattan Institute, has just launched his own blog, which is likely to be of wide interest. He gets off to a good start (Apr. 19) with a post based on a simple but clever idea for measuring influence:

If you stand on the steps of a state capitol building and throw a rock (with a really strong arm), the first building you can hit has a good chance of being the headquarters of the state teacher union. For interest groups, proximity to the capitol is a way of displaying power and influence. The teacher union, more than any other interest group, strives to be the closest. They want to remind everyone that among powerful interest groups, they are the most powerful - a prince among princes.

To see who has the most powerful digs, Jonathan Butcher and I actually bothered to measure just how close interest group offices are to state capitol buildings. We started with a list of the 25 most influential interest groups, as compiled by Fortune magazine. We then used Google Maps to plot the location of the state offices of those 25 interest groups and measured the distance to the capitol building.

The results are illuminating. Of the 25 most influential interest groups, the teacher union is the closest in 14 of the 50 states. The labor union, AFL-CIO, is the closest in 7 states. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and National Federation of Independent Business are the closest in 5 states, each. The trial lawyers lobby, the American Association for Justice, is the closest in 4 states.

The teacher union is among the four closest interest groups in 27 states. The trial lawyers are in the top four in 22 states, followed by the AARP in 20 states and the AFL-CIO in 19 states. ...

If we gave four points for being closest, three for being the second closest, two for being third closest, and one for being the fourth closest, teacher unions would have a total of 85 points. No other group would have more than 60 points. Only four of the 25 groups would have above 40 points, with the trial lawyers, AARP, and AFL-CIO joining the teacher union in this elite group.

As Greene notes, the point of capitol proximity may be less a practical one (shaving a minute or two off the time needed to drop by to do some influencing) as that of making "a visible display of their power and influence", like having the most sought-after seats at a sporting event. He's followed with a state-by-state rundown of proximity here.

Do as we say, not as we do?

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann is leading a group of 18 state Attorneys General seeking a ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court that employees can not be retaliated against by their bosses for filing a sexual harassment complaint.

The case comes at an ironic moment for Dann, as his office is investigating claims by two 26-year-old women who work at the Attorney General's office that they were sexually harassed on and off the job by their boss, Anthony Gutierrez, a close friend of Dann's who shared a Columbus condominium with him.

("Dann Defends Woman Amid Own Office's Sexual Harassment Flap", Fox8 Cleveland, Apr. 16; Mark Rollenhagen and Reginald Fields, "Employee in Ohio attorney general's office files police report", Cleveland Plain Dealer, Apr. 19). Amid talk of a cover-up, Dann has also denied a request from the Columbus Dispatch under the state's public records law "to review three months' worth of e-mail messages between him and his then-scheduler, Jessica Utovich," both of whose names turn up as possible witnesses in colorful text messages offered as evidence in the claims. "Dann in the past has said e-mails are public records and also has sought troves of messages from public offices when he was a state senator and the Democratic candidate for Ohio's top legal office." (James Nash, "Dann won't release e-mails", DispatchPolitics (Columbus Dispatch), Apr. 13; Julie Carr Smyth, "Sexual complaint probe at top cop's office intensifies", AP/Akron Beacon Journal, Apr. 18; Mark Naymik, "Dann has habit of hiring his friends; some have proved to be embarrassments", Openers (Cleveland Plain Dealer blog), Apr. 12; Reginald Fields, "Dann employee files complaint with police", Openers, Apr. 18).

After initial resistance, Dann did release some information that raised reportorial eyebrows:

In a surprising reversal, Attorney General Marc Dann's office released 12 pages of notes that detail allegations of repeated sexual harassment and possibly an attempt to destroy text messages that may document the incidents. ...

Dann's Equal Employment Opportunity officer, Angela Smedlund, interviewed Cindy Stankoski and Vanessa Stout on March 31 about problems they had had with their boss, Anthony Gutierrez, who is Dann's friend and former roommate.

Smedlund's notes reveal the following:

Stankoski agreed to go out for drinks with Gutierrez last Sept. 10, but said she soon "felt tipsy and trapped." She agreed to go to an apartment Gutierrez shared with Dann and Communications Director Leo Jennings III. She called and text-messaged friends that night.

In the margin, Smedlund wrote: "Leo & Tony destroyed texts Tony admitted to Charlie." The notes do not identify Charlie's last name.

Jennings and Gutierrez are now both on paid administrative leave.

(Laura A. Bischoff, "Dann's office unveils documents detailing harassment report", Lebanon, Oh. Western-Star, Apr. 16; Rollenhagen/Fields, "Reports show Dann was aware of Gutierrez's history of troubles", Cleveland Plain Dealer/Youngstown Vindicator, Apr. 18; Bertram de Souza, "Will Dann survive the crisis?", StirFry (Youngstown Vindicator), Apr. 17). Perhaps unfortunately in retrospect, the noisily anti-business Dann had been lionized in the New York Times after his election as a possible "next Eliot Spitzer".

More: Above the Law, John Phillips ("Other key words are pajamas, condo, inappropriate text messages, Hawaiian pizza, booze, passing out in a bedroom, unbuttoned pants upon waking up, and nothing on but his underwear."), Law and More. Update: Dann's emails with scheduler released (Dispatch via Genova)

A new must-read for those interested in reform, Dan Pero is blogging at "American Courthouse" about judicial elections.

Speaking of Ground Zero dust lawsuits, I will be testifying Tuesday morning about H.R. 3543's proposal to reopen the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund to potentially hundreds of thousands of new claimants.

(Bumped Tuesday with SSRN link to testimony.)

The ten big donors who bootlessly pledged up to $12 million include some familiar names, such as John Eddie Williams and Peter Angelos, as well as a new one, Calvin C. Fayard, Jr., of the firm Fayard & Honeycutt, A.P.C., who boasts connections with former Louisiana AG Charles Foti (Folo, Mar. 20; "Michigan Missives", The Caucus (NY Times), Mar. 19).

Andrew M. Grossman and James L. Gattuso analyze the CPSC Reform Act, S. 2663 (the update to S. 2045). We discussed Feb. 20 and Feb. 25, as well as briefly Jan. 1. Update: After the jump, Senator DeMint's office provides the "Top Ten Reasons to Oppose the CPSC “Reform” Act (S. 2663)"

The Republican candidate sticks his foot in it in a major way on a topic extensively covered here over the years (as well as at my other site). Writes Mark Kleiman: "the thimerosal-autism theory is as dead as phlogiston in respectable company. I'm not surprised that 'respectable company' excludes a few ambulance-chasing lawyers looking for deep pockets and a some emotionally devastated parents looking for someone to blame. But it's distressing — to use no stronger term — that the presumptive Republican nominee for President, rather than looking at the evidence, has chosen to side with the panic-spreaders and pander to the emotions of the panic victims." More: Orac.

I have a guest post at Above the Law analyzing Obama's tax plan and showing that it will dramatically raise taxes for young lawyers. Whether that is a bug or a feature is in the eye of the beholder.

For all the complaints about tort reformers supposedly relying upon urban legends to promote their cause, one more frequently sees trial lawyers promoting fictional versions of their victories. As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama kowtow to John Edwards for his endorsement, it's worth exploring the case on his record he refers to most frequently. Remarkably, not a single mainstream media organization has questioned Edwards's self-serving version of the Valerie Lakey case. I correct this problem in today's American:

Sta-Rite had already been putting warnings on its pool drain covers, and the 1993 case did nothing to change their product design or the warnings conveyed to buyers. The drain cover in the Lakey case was sold in February 1987 with a warning label; soon thereafter Sta-Rite began embossing the warnings on the cover. This safety innovation was used against them at trial, the argument being that they should have acted earlier. But no one could reasonably think that an additional warning to screw in the drain cover would have made an iota of difference. The cover already had holes for screws, county regulations already required the pool drain cover to be screwed down, the pool managers testified that they had done so several times in the year before Lakey’s accident—and Edwards had already recovered millions from the municipality for its failure to keep the cover screwed down.

Big news day in the Scruggs scandals: a judge has turned down defense motions to throw out the charges and to suppress the evidence, a hearing on those motions has showcased the testimony of government informant Tim Balducci, and the government in responding to the motions has released extensive and often quite damning transcripts of the wiretap conversations among the principals. Folo as usual provides the most in-depth coverage, with posts on the judge's rulings here and here, on the hearing and Balducci's testimony here and in numerous preceding posts, and on the wiretap transcripts here and in numerous preceding posts. David Rossmiller is on the judge's ruling here, and on the hearing and transcripts here. More: Patsy Brumfield, NEMDJ, was at the courthouse.

Picking through the rich contents of the transcripts and Balducci's testimony is going to keep Scruggsians busy for a good long time. In the meanwhile, some odds and ends:

* Want to review all the major events of the central alleged bribery case, skillfully narrated in chronological sequence? Of course you do. Folo's NMC has it in six parts beginning here and ending here (follow links to find those in between).

* John Grisham's "Too Dumb for Dickie" theory encounters some serious strain [Rossmiller and again]

* Mississippi legislature won't give AG Jim Hood authority to wiretap his enemies suspected white-collar criminals. Gee, wonder why that might be? [WLBT via Lange] Plus: description of Hood as a Pez dispenser coughing out multi-million-dollar cases for his chums [Rossmiller]

* More unpretty details surface on Scruggs's (and other lawyers) use of informants in Katrina litigation [Rossmiller] and tobacco [Lange]

* More Hood: prosecuting the accused judge-bribers "would be like prosecuting a relative" [Salter, Clarion-Ledger, Rossmiller, Folo]. Give back tainted money? "That's up to DAGA [Democratic Attorneys General Association]" [Lange]

* Former Louisiana attorney general Richard Ieyoub gets a mention, as does Sen. Trent Lott [Folo, same] Update: feds investigating what Sen. Lott knew [WSJ]

* Small world, Mississippi: member of arbitration panel that awarded Scruggs huge fees was later hired by the tort potentate for legal work [Lange]

* Blogosphere has been a major source for breaking news on the scandal [LegalNewsLine]

* Liberal columnist Bill Minor recalls when a certain Sen. McCain let Dickie Scruggs and Mike Moore run their tobacco lobbying campaign out of his Hill office [NEMDJ via Folo; more at PBS "Frontline" and NY Times]

ACSH's Jeff Stier in today's New York Post:

CONGRESS is poised to pass a massive giveaway to the ambulance-chasing trial attorneys - under the guise of protecting consumers.

The proposed law [the CPSC Reform Act] would give the 50 state attorneys general new powers to sue the makers of allegedly unsafe products - and even to demand help in their suits from the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Headline-hungry AGs will even be able to sue over products the CPSC has already found to be safe. In other words, national standards will effectively go out the window, as politically ambitious AGs compete to bash business so as to win popularity for future elections.

The legislation - which the House has already passed and the Senate's likely to pass - would hamper CPSC's mission by creating multiple unscientific "safety" standards. Each AG's vision of what the latest scientific studies imply about purported dangers would prevail in a given state, rather than the CPSC's own (far more expert) findings.

All this would mean a bonanza to trial lawyers - who'd stand to make hundreds of millions from relentless lawsuits within just a few years, since each state would become a new roulette-wheel of potential jury verdicts against manufacturers. ...

Further encouraging bogus complaints, the bill would grant unprecedented "whistle-blower" protection to any employee who alleges a fear of product danger - an easy way to secure your job until your case is adjudicated.

Before they officially became presidential candidates, the Illinois and New York senators co-authored an article in the May 25, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, entitled "Making Patient Safety the Centerpiece of Medical Liability Reform." (See: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/21/2205)

They sympathized with physicians over escalating insurance costs and condemned the current tort system for creating an "intimidating liability environment." Still, Clinton and Obama said, it's more important to focus on how to improve patient safety than "areas of intense disagreement," such as caps on financial awards to patients.

They introduced legislation, which died in committee in 2006, to provide money and assistance to physicians, hospitals, insurers, and health care systems to start programs for disclosure of medical errors and compensation to patients. The bill would have created an office of patient safety and health care quality to establish a database to track incidents of malpractice and fund research into guidelines to prevent future injuries.

"Physicians would be given certain protections from liability … in order to promote a safe environment for disclosure. … This legislation would provide doctors and patients with an opportunity to find solutions outside the courtroom. In return, [hospitals, insurers, and others] would be required to use savings achieved by reducing legal defense costs to reduce liability insurance premiums and to foster patient-safety initiatives."

(Mark Crane, MedPageToday, Jan. 7). More: see Ted's December post at PoL.

Are the Democrats inclined toward them? Is the GOP averse to them? Or is it that the apparent contrast between the parties is overstated? (Laura Appleman, Faculty Lounge, Feb. 8).