Blog
Judicial Advertising
By Monique Chase – 09/15/08
In a CNBC interview last week, Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Co., answered questions stemming from a recent decline in his company's stock. When asked to respond to a New York Times editorial highlighting Massey's legal trouble and his suspect dealings with the West Virginia courts, the CEO dismissed the facts as skewed, and would not acknowledge that his actions posed any conflict of interest.
(For more background on this case, we have written on Blankenship's campaign contributions and questionable relationship with judges HERE and HERE)
While it is unclear how Blankenship managed to keep a straight face during the interview while denying that even the perception of a conflict of interest exists—even the news anchors on the pro-business CNBC appeared to find Blankenship's answers unsatisfactory—what is clear is that events like these make it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for state courts to preserve public confidence.
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Fair Courts, Judicial Advertising, State Judicial Elections
By Monique Chase – 06/04/08
"Brace
yourselves for the most ugly and expensive state Supreme Court election in
Wisconsin's history in 2009," warns Jay Heck, director of Common Cause
Wisconsin. In his Capital
Times op-ed, Heck takes shots at Wisconsin's legislature for failing to act
on a campaign finance reform bill, and accuses the group of quietly, "smothering
it with a pillow" during its special legislative session.
Heck's
brashness is understandable. Forget about the fact that Governor Jim Doyle
called the special session specifically
in the interests of campaign finance reform. Recent candidate special interest spending
in Wisconsin's last two judicial election cycles, makes clear that, now, more
than ever, comprehensive campaign finance reform is needed in the state.
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Fair Courts, Judicial Advertising
By James Sample – 03/22/08
(cross posted from The Wall Street Journal):
Certain American values transcend partisan divisions. One is that money should not influence the courts. But with record sums pouring into judicial elections, the ideal of due process is giving way to a perception of pay-to-play justice.
This is not a matter of red versus blue. Seventy-six percent of Americans believe that campaign contributions influence judicial decisions, according to a 2001-2002 survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and American Viewpoint; 46% of state court judges agree, according to a written survey by the same organizations. Separate recent empirical studies in the New York Times and the Tulane Law Review support the proposition that contributions not only correlate with decisions, but alter them.
John Grisham's latest bestseller, "The Appeal," is a shadowy tale of a chemical company that buys a favorable legal ruling by funding the election of the judge who makes it. Farfetched? Not according to West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Larry Starcher. In a scathing opinion last month, he decried a "cancer" of moneyed influence in his court, asserting that "John Grisham got it right when he said that he simply had to read The Charleston Gazette to get an idea for his next novel."
Read the full Wall Street Journal piece here.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Fair Courts, Independence & Accountability, Judicial Advertising, State Judicial Elections
0 comments | Permalink