Supreme Court Justices and Their Campaign Contributions: Can Justice Be Purchased?
<i>Articles have been written putting into question the study on which the following blog entry was based. The Tulane Law Review and Law School have apologized, but the authors, although admitting to their errors, stand by their conclusions and plan to publish a revised version of their law review article, according to <a href="http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-30/122162881765… article</a> in the New Orleans </i>Times-Picayune<i>. For more on this, click on <a href="http://www.lasc.org/press_room/press_releases/2008/2008-17.asp" target="_blank">this Louisiana Supreme Court press release dated September 15, 2008.</a>.
Even if it turns out that no relationship can be shown between campaign contributions and Supreme Court decisions, there is still the issue of appearance of impropriety, as well as the issue of pressure on elected judges not to ignore the interests of those who help them get elected.</i>
Hidden away in yesterday’s New York Times is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/us/29bar.html" target="_blank">a column</a> about a study undertaken by a law professor in a state that, one would think, would grow tired of governmental ethics scandals.
The professor is Vernon Palmer of Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, and the state is, of course, Louisiana.
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/365">Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.</a>
This time the apparent culprits are the state’s Supreme Court justices. The scandal-to-be involves campaign contributions given to Supreme Court candidates by individuals who end up appearing before them, themselves or their businesses.
Prof. Palmer wrote each Supreme Court justice, asking him or her to adopt a rule that would make disqualification mandatory when someone comes before the court who gave a justice a campaign contribution. Palmer thought this was a conflict of interest. This doesn’t sound off the wall to me.
Not a word came in reply. Palmer did it again six months later. Not a word came in reply. If this is not an admission that the justices knew they were acting unethically, it is at least an admission that they have no common sense and no manners.
Lesson No. 1: When a prominent local law professor writes you a letter, answer it. You have a staff, you have e-mail, use them. A minute’s work can save you a lot of grief.
Palmer was apparently peeved and put together a statistical study of the justices’ votes over fourteen years, breaking them down by whether the plaintiff, defendant, or no one gave them money. The result was that there appears to have been an effect on their votes based on campaign contributions. The effect is more clear with respect to some justices than others.
The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/us/29bar.html" target="_blank">Times column by Adam Liptak</a> shows the results, which will soon be published in the Tulane Law Review. The column also talks about similar problems in Ohio, where the Times itself did a study.
Politicians keep saying they can’t be bought, that this isn’t what campaign contributions are for. Studies like this one are useful to show that contributions are not just about sharing policies or respecting candidates, that campaign contributions can be a source of corruption. When Supreme Court justices won’t recognize this possibility, we are in trouble. It will be interesting to see what the Louisiana justices do and say in response. Palmer's study doesn't appear to have been mentioned yet by Louisiana's two principal newspapers.