Litigation

Another Recusal Controversy in West Virginia

Posted on September 24, 2010
There is a new recusal issue facing a state Supreme Court justice in West Virginia, the home of a judicial recusal dispute that made landmark law in the U.S. Supreme Court last year. Justice Menis Ketchum has declined to step aside from a case involving the state limit on punitive damages, according to a Blog [...

Corporations Seen ?Fudging? on Indirect Spending Plans

Posted on September 24, 2010
Are some publicly traded companies fudging about their plans to fund indirect political expenditures following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling? A  non-profit group that pushes for greater corporate transparency thinks so. In its September newsletter, the Washington-based Center for Political Accountability said it sent a letter to all S&P 500 companies, asking about company [...

Polarized Senate and ?Disorder in Court?

Posted on September 24, 2010
There was a sudden burst of media coverage and commentary after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted again this week to recommend confirmation of four of President Obama’s judicial nominees, including his most controversial pick, Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu (see Gavel Grab)...

Million-Dollar Retention Elections in Iowa?

Posted on September 24, 2010
Could Iowans see an unprecedented $1 million flow into three retention elections for state Supreme Court justices this fall? A Des Moines Register blog posting raises that possibility. The blog attributes it to an official of the Justice at Stake Campaign, which issued a joint report with the Brennan Center for Justice (see Gavel Grab) [...

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Election 2010: Long-Quiet States Heat Up

Posted on September 23, 2010
The Justice at Stake Campaign and a partner, the Brennan Center for Justice, have unveiled a new website featuring data on national TV spending, candidate fundraising and key political players in 2010 state high-court elections, which may be unprecedented in their character...

Disclosure Bill Falters Again in Senate

Posted on September 23, 2010
Democratic efforts to advance a bill requiring disclosure by corporations and labor unions of their political spending faltered in the Senate today for the second time. In the face of a Republican filibuster, a proposal to advance the legislation toward a final vote on the Senate floor fell one vote short of the required 60 [...

Senate Panel Approves Nominees Again

Posted on September 23, 2010
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted its approval again Thursday for four controversial nominees picked by President Obama for federal judgeships. The action sets the stage for a possible showdown in the weeks before the heated mid-term elections. Approved along party lines was the nomination of Goodwin Liu, a Berkeley law professor, for the Ninth U...

Editorial: ?Make Judges? Disclosures Easier to Get?

Posted on September 23, 2010
A Nevada newspaper is displeased that  federal judges’ asset disclosure statements are “hard to get” and the public may face a long waiting period to see them, as an Associated Press dispatch reported earlier this week (see Gavel Grab)...

Gavel Grab?s State Elections Roundup

Posted on September 23, 2010
In judicial election-season news from around the nation: IOWA: A drive to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices is “misguided,” said Judge Robert Hans0n, author of the initial opinion legalizing same-sex marriage in the state, according to an Associated Press article...

Wednesday Gavel Grab Briefs

Posted on September 22, 2010
In other fair and impartial courts dispatches: A candidate for the Juvenile Court in Orleans Parish used a website to assail his opponent and her husband, who pleaded guilty a decade ago to a negligent homicide charge tied to a 1-year-old boy’s drowning, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported...

Testimony Complete in Impeachment Trial

Posted on September 22, 2010
A special U.S. Senate impeachment panel has concluded hearing testimony in the trial of federal Judge G. Thomas Porteous of Louisiana. The 12-member panel will deliver a report to the full Senate, and it is expected to vote on his future after the November elections, according to a Los Angeles Times article...

U.S. Judges Shifting on Gay Rights Issues?

Posted on September 22, 2010
An earlier Gavel Grab posting referred to recent victories for lesbian and gay rights advocates in federal courts. Now a New York Times article picks up the thread and examines what spawned the decisions, and what’s ahead. “Despite Setback, Gay Rights Move Forward,” is the article’s headline, and it is tied to the Senate’s failure [...

In Nevada, O?Connor Stumps for Merit Selection

Posted on September 22, 2010
Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor campaigned vigorously in Nevada for voters to support merit selection of judges. She spent part of her time declaring that appointed judges are good for business. She was surprised to learn in a recent visit to Iowa that both the business sector and unions were “absolutely sold” on [...

OH Justice Takes Aim at Court?s Chief

Posted on September 21, 2010
A candidate for chief justice in Ohio has likened that court, with her opponent at the helm, to a “rudderless ship.” ?I believe that, at this point, the Ohio Supreme Court is akin to a rudderless ship without a leader, without direction, and post-Nov...

MN Disclosure Law Survives Initial Challenge

Posted on September 21, 2010
A federal judge has refused requests to suspend a new Minnesota law requiring  corporations to disclose their financial support of election-season advertising. U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank declined to issue a temporary injunction in a lawsuit (see Gavel Grab) brought by backers of Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer and by Indiana-based lawyer James Bopp Jr...

Harder to Get Federal Judges? Disclosure Reports

Posted on September 20, 2010
Although a federal judge weighing a request to block the Obama administration’s first deepwater drilling moratorium this year held shares of Exxon Mobil, the public didn’t know it. A routine disclosure statement of Judge Martin Feldman’s investments ought to have been available, but it wasn’t, the Associated Press reported in an article entitled, “Judges’ disclosures [...

Before New Term, Justices Get Around

Posted on September 20, 2010
Some of the Supreme Court justices have been all over the map recently. In California, Justice Antonin Scalia spoke at the U.C. Hastings School of Law, and he had a few choice words about the Florida pastor who scuttled plans for a Koran-burning. Justice Scalia labeled pastor Terry Jones an “idiot,” according to a Contra [...

Prop 8 Backers Appeal Court Ruling

Posted on September 20, 2010
Backers of the voter-approved resolution banning same-sex marriage in California are asking an appeals court to overturn a judge’s decision that found the measure unconstitutional. Judge Vaughn R. Walker “ignored an overwhelming body of evidence establishing the common-sense proposition that the institution of marriage has, virtually always and everywhere, been defined as a union of [...

Another Push in Senate for Disclosure Vote?

Posted on September 20, 2010
The Senate may try again in the next few weeks for a vote on House-passed legislation to require groups than run political ads to disclose their donors. Senate Republicans blocked the bill’s advance in July (see Gavel Grab). Since then, published reports have spotlighted a dramatic decline in disclosure by independent groups receiving money for [...

Editorial: Almost Time to Re-Examine OH Judicial Campaigns

Posted on September 20, 2010
The time is almost right for a re-examination of Ohio’s judicial campaign system, an editorial in the Columbus Dispatch asserts. The editorial points to rulings by a federal appeals court and the Ohio Supreme Court (see Gavel Grab) that had the effect of relaxing some rules for judicial campaigns, and to election reforms recently proposed [...

IA Courts on ?Slippery Slope??

Posted on September 20, 2010
Iowa’s court system is facing a “slippery slope” toward an unknown future, given the introduction of campaign cash and partisan politics in the controversial retention elections of three state Supreme Court justices. That was the warning sounded by defenders of Iowa’s merit-based system for selecting judges as they responded to paid advertising launched to push [...

Operator, Wrong Number

Posted on September 20, 2010
Earlier this month, the American Justice Partnership?which has spent more than $2 million this decade on Supreme Court races?alleged a national conspiracy to ?abolish judicial elections.?  (AJP regularly inveighs against the merit selection/retention election systems that 24 states have used for decades to select judges...

Nevadans to Vote on Merit Selection of Judges

Posted on September 17, 2010
// A ballot question to change the way Nevadans select their judges is getting more attention in the run-up to November’s elections. Retired state Supreme Court Justice Bill Maupin outlined some of the reasons to change to a merit-based system when he was interviewed on MY4News...

Obama Hammers ?Citizens United?

Posted on September 17, 2010
President Obama has more to say about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and how it has affected American politics. ?Right now, all across the country, special interests are planning and running millions of dollars of attack ads against Democratic candidates,? the president said at a fundraiser in Connecticut, according to a New York Times [...

?Our Judicial Mess? Lamented in Alabama

Posted on September 17, 2010
A recent Justice at Stake poll, showing solid bipartisan majorities believe campaign cash influences judicial decisions, continues to hit home in Alabama. In an editorial entitled “Our judicial mess,” the Anniston Star editorial board cited extensively from the Harris Interactive survey (see Gavel Grab), then drew a contrast between the survey findings and the predominant [...

First Attacks Fly in MI Court Race

Posted on September 17, 2010
The attack ads have begun in Michigan, where races for two state Supreme Court seats are expected to become costly and ugly. Justice Elizabeth Weaver, who had feuded with her fellow Republicans in the court’s majority, recently resigned. Democratic Gov...

Judge Allows ?Matching? Funds in Maine

Posted on September 17, 2010
A federal judge has declined to bar payments of “matching” taxpayer funds to political candidates in Maine who qualify for public financing under that state’s law. District Judge George Singal denied a motion to block the payments, according to a Maine Public Broadcasting Network article...

Breyer: ?We?re not Junior League Politicians?

Posted on September 16, 2010
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer continues to speak publicly as he promotes his new book for general audiences, and one of his themes is eliminating the idea that judges rule under the sway of politics. Americans “think we’re a group of junior league politicians,” he told a Wall Street Journal interviewer...

Outlook Bleak for Campaign Finance, Election Reforms?

Posted on September 16, 2010
Disclosure of funding for “issue ads” in political campaigns has declined. And the next Congress isn’t likely to take steps toward campaign finance reform and election reform. Those dual reports, culled from recent newspaper and online dispatches, outline the scope of the challenge facing advocates who support greater disclosure and campaign finance reform...

Specter to Press for Cameras at High Court

Posted on September 16, 2010
A pilot plan for televising some federal civil trials is but a “will o’ the wisp,” says departing Sen. Arlen Specter, who plans to make a last stand to require cameras in the U.S. Supreme Court. In a National Law Journal interview, the Pennsylvania Democrat, who was defeated in a primary election, not only dismissed [...

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