McCain-Feingold is based on the premise that money used to purchase speech distorts the political process because candidates can use money to fool voters, and therefore the speech purchased by money must be regulated. First Amendment limitations that not even the O’Connor Court was willing to override, however, prevented McCain-Feingold from reaching the spending of personal funds to self-promote. Thus, multi-millionaire Mitt Romney, because he was able to spend millions of dollars of his own money to promote his message would, according to the premises of McCain-Feingold, prevent candidates without those millions from winning elections. If those premises are correct. Which is why John McCain’s decisive victory yesterday is simultaneously a decisive repudiation of the campaign finance law he is most known for.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
February 6 roundup
- Calling it “oppressive”, committee chair in Mississippi legislature vows to defeat proposal to ban restaurants from serving obese patrons [AP/Picayune-Item; earlier]
- Latest in whales vs. sub sonar: judge deep-sixes Bush’s attempt to exempt Navy from rules against bothering marine mammals [CNN; earlier]
- Much-criticized opener of ABC’s new series Eli Stone aired last Thursday, and Orac takes a scalpel to the vaccine-scare script [Respectful Insolence, which also covers new autism studies]
- Scary proposal approved by California assembly would strong-arm larger private foundations — and businesses that deal with them — into “diversity” numbers game [Lehrer/Hicks @ L.A. Times]
- New Dutch study finds thin people and nonsmokers cost health system more in long run than obese and smokers — theories behind Medicaid-recoupment litigation are looking more fraudulent every day, aren’t they? [AP]
- Late, but worth noting: blogger nails John Edwards’s demagoguery on Nataline Sarkisyan case [Matthew Holt @ Spot-On, via KevinMD; more here, here, and from Ted here]
- Puff piece on food-poisoning lawyer William Marler [AP/KOMO]
- Ready, set, all take offense: Sen. McCain likes to tell lawyer jokes [WSJ law blog]
- In suit charging UFCW with “racketeering”, Smithfield cites as an underlying offense union’s having lobbied city councils to pass resolutions condemning the meatpacker; company has hired Prof. G. Robert Blakey, who denies the RICO law he drafted is a menace to liberty [Liptak, NYT; some earlier parallels in federal tobacco suit]
- Golden age of comic books was 1930s-1950s, but golden age of comic book litigation is now [NLJ]
- New at Point of Law: Hillary’s “disastrous” mortgage scheme; Qualcomm sanctions ruling could curb discovery abuse; if Mel Weiss has been kind to you, why drop him down memory hole?; new academic theory on uniformity of contingency fees; the trouble with patenting tax avoidance strategies; and much more [visit][bumped Wed. a.m.]
February 5 roundup
- John Ritter’s family has already received $14 million in settlements, seeking $67 million more in medical malpractice litigation for ER failure to diagnose rare heart condition. Dr. R.W. Donnell thinks they’re wrong. [LA Times; USA Today; Kevin MD; Turkewitz; Overlawyered Sep. 2004]
- Speaking of the celebrity bonus in litigation: as M.E. e-mailed me, “Cheek rides again”; Wesley Snipes acquitted of tax felonies, though convicted of misdemeanors, and still on the hook for $17 million in taxes plus penalties. [NY Times; earlier]
- California AG Jerry Brown continuing bogus carbon dioxide “public nuisance” lawsuit against automakers [Stirling & Sandefur @ Investor’s Business Daily; earlier]
- Words-only criminal obscenity prosecution. [WSJ Law Blog (and farewell to Peter Lattman)]
- In the category of gambits we’re sympathetic to, but are unlikely to succeed: East Texas burger restaurant tries mandatory-arbitration-by-posted-window-notice [TortsProf]
- Mikal Watts puff piece [Corpus Christi Caller-Times]
“Scruggs’s deposition is to begin immediately and shall continue until its natural conclusion”
David Rossmiller—indispensable for matters Scruggsian—has the details of a Judge Michael Mills’s displeasure with Dickie Scruggs’s refusal to submit to a deposition in State Farm’s lawsuit against state attorney general Jim Hood. Scruggs will likely plead the Fifth Amendment for his interactions with the attorney general—which does not reflect well on that attorney general.
Scruggs scandal developments, February 5
* Pertinacious Scruggs effort to evade deposition by State Farm attorneys results in “testosterone fiesta” of swaggering counsel (Folo; sequel; YallPolitics; Rossmiller); (P.S. Yes, Ted and I independently noticed and posted on this just minutes apart.)
* Remember when Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood declared his political patron Scruggs a “confidential informant”, thus throwing a most useful cloak of protection over him in his battle against contempt charges? It happens that Scruggs was at almost exactly the same moment donating large sums to the Democratic Attorneys General Association which seem to have passed through like a dose of salts to emerge at the other end as donations to Hood (YallPolitics; earlier on DAGA)
* Attorney Ed Peters, tagged with a pivotal role in Langston-DeLaughter branch of scandal, was formerly high-profile local D.A.; his prosecutorial vendetta against an attorney named J. Keith Shelton comes in for scrutiny in a new series by Folo proprietor Lotus [#5 in series; posts tagged Peters; see also YallPolitics]
* Folo co-blogger NMC, looking into Luckey and Wilson fee disputes (earlier here, here, here), is rattled by the prevalence of hearings-without-notice, ex parte judicial contacts, and other Gothic proceduralisms [Folo];
* Implications or non-implications for civil proceedings of Scruggs’s taking the Fifth [White Collar Crime Prof Blog]
* Adam Cohen of the NYT and Scott Horton of Harper’s claim defendants in precursor Minor-Teel-Whitfield scandal were railroaded on vague charges over not-really-illegal stuff; read pp. 6-9 of the indictment and see whether you agree (YallPolitics);
* For Mississippi, it’s already the most far-reaching corruption scandal in a century, aside from the question of how much bigger it might get [Jackson Clarion-Ledger]
Earlier Scruggs coverage on our scandals page.
U.K.: A one-man bias-suit industry
“For a decade [Suresh Deman] sued universities – usually claiming racial bias over failed job applications – as he collected nearly £200,000 in payouts and cost the taxpayer an estimated £1million”. After he had brought 40 actions he was declared a vexatious litigant and banned from further proceedings, but the ban did not cover Northern Ireland and he was soon there pursuing an 11-year-old claim against the Association of University Teachers and Officers (AUT). (Chris Brooke, “Race-claims lecturer beats legal ban to carry on suing after 40 discrimination claims”, Daily Mail (U.K.), Nov. 19; A Tangled Web, Nov. 19; “In the news: Suresh Deman”, Times Higher Education Supplement, Mar. 21, 2003).
Update: received on Oct. 5, 2015, via comment form from a commenter giving the name of “C Kumar”:
In 2007 a leading national newspapers published defamatory material by putting me into negative light. Initial persuasion with the editor to retract and tender an apology did not work, so matter went to the High Court. After 8 years, persistence paid off and I was vindicated with an agreement to publish an apology as follows:
“In the editions of 21st and 28 January 2007 we published articles entitled, “De-Man for race pay outs” and “De-Man for race compensation is back in Ulster” concerning a Industrial Tribunal cases taken in Northern Ireland by Dr Suresh Deman, on the basis that he suffered discrimination in his employment.
The articles wrongly characterized him as “De-Man” and claimed that Dr Deman was barred from instituting the proceedings in Northern Ireland and did not provide Dr Deman the opportunity to comment on the their content. We are happy to clarify this and apologies to Dr Deman for our error….”
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
My monthly post for NPR’s Talking Justice weblog is about their topic of the week, the Ledbetter Supreme Court case and the associated (and counterproductive) legislation passed by the House.
Lerach: keep my sentencing briefs under seal
Ah, the hypocritical irony: Bill Lerach moves to keep his sentencing documents for the Milberg Weiss kickback scandal under seal, perhaps to protect the identities of the 150 people who wrote on his behalf. [NY Sun] Any politicians we should know about? Portfolio has the briefing; the DC Examiner comments. Prosecutors have asked for 24 months (out of a possible 33-month maximum under the Guidelines); sentencing is February 11. (Crossposted from Point of Law.)
Deep Pockets File: Great White fire
Innocent bystanders have paid the bulk of settlements to date in the catastrophic fire caused by Great White’s pyrotechnic display that killed 100 people at The Station nightclub in Providence, Rhode Island. The latest victims are a television station, WPRI, and a cameraman who will contribute $30 million to a settlement fund: WPRI’s Brian Butler is accused of impeding the crowd’s exit through the front door, though Butler’s contemporaneous account suggests that he probably saved some lives at the time. “Dozens of defendants remain, including … Anheuser-Busch Inc., which sold beer at the concert; and Clear Channel Communications, which owns a Providence radio station which ran advertisements promoting the show.” (Andrea Estes, “Tentative deal set in R.I. fire case”, Boston Globe, Feb. 2; “Tentative $30 Million Settlement in Club Fire”, AP/NY Times, Feb. 2). Earlier: Feb. 2006 and Nov. 2 (Home Depot pays $5M for failure to warn, though their foam is different than the foam that caught on fire).
Banning restaurants from serving the obese
House Bill 282, filed in the Mississippi legislature, is an “act to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the state department of health”. It sounds as if it almost has to be a parody, but when Sandy Szwarc calls its sponsor he says he’s perfectly serious (Jan. 31).