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For Immediate Release: Contact:
April 5, 2001 Doug Kendall or Zach Church
Community Rights Counsel
(202) 296-6889

Hidden Camera Exposes Anti-Environmental
Junkets for Judges

“20/20” to Air Investigation Tonight of Judges Vacationing at Luxury Resorts on Corporate Dime

Washington – A hidden-camera investigation by ABC’s 20/20, scheduled to air Friday, April 6, will reveal federal judges playing golf and lounging at a premier Tucson resort – at the expense of anti-environmental front groups funded by corporations often having cases before those judges.

Every year, nearly 100 federal judges spend a week or more being “educated” in seminars held at lavish tropical resorts and scenic dude ranches, paid for not by the judiciary’s education arm but by corporations and pro-business special interests.

Community Rights Counsel (CRC), a public interest law firm in Washington, D.C., credits 20/20 with providing visual documentation of how these corporate-funded junkets break the public's trust in the judiciary.  CRC exposed these junkets in 1998 and last year issued a report documenting how they appear to be advancing the agenda of their corporate sponsors and undermining the American system of environmental protections.  

“20/20’s investigation should be the straw that breaks the camel's back," said CRC Executive Director Doug Kendall. “It will be clear to anyone watching that corporate interests are attempting to buy judicial influence with these junkets. It’s time that the judiciary put a stop to this blatant corporate lobbying.”

Junkets for judges have been written about for more than two years and have drawn widespread criticism from newspaper editorials, public interest organizations, and judicial ethicists.  Responding to this outcry, Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin said today they plan to reintroduce their bill banning such junkets.  Also today, Environmental Working Group, a environmental watchdog organization, wrote Chief Justice Rehnquist renewing its call for an immediate ban on judicial junkets.

The 20/20 investigation demonstrates, however, that federal judges are willfully ignoring existing ethics rules and the judiciary has refused to stop the practice of corporations buying judges’ attention.  In fact, Chief Justice Rehnquist recently defended the junkets while demanding a pay raise for federal judges. The judiciary's inaction convinced 20/20 to go undercover at a judges’ junket held at an Arizona golf resort to give Americans a behind-the-scenes access to one of these ethically suspect resort seminars.

The 20/20 investigation features a junket financed by the conservative Law and Economic Center (LEC), which is loosely affiliated with the George Mason University Law School in Arlington, Virginia. LEC pays for the course, deluxe accommodations, transportation, food, drink, and some recreational activities. It’s not known how much the Tucson trip cost, but one judge attending a 1997 LEC trip reported the value at $7,367.

The LEC teaches judges the right-leaning “Chicago School” of law and economics, an academic discipline that instructs judges to think like CEOs and marginalizes consumer and regulatory protections, including the tort system, anti-trust, and environmental laws. An LEC newsletter boasts that more than one-third of all federal judges have attended one of its junkets and that many judges believe the programs have “totally altered their frame of reference for cases involving economic issues.” 

LEC has aggressively stonewalled efforts to uncover its funding sources, hiding this information even from the federal judiciary. But research by 20/20 and CRC reveals that LEC's funders include corporations such as Ford Motor Co. and Proctor & Gamble and right-wing financiers such Richard Mellon Scaife and the John M. Olin Foundation. These corporations are frequently involved in federal litigation, and the conservative foundations regularly finance others to litigate on behalf of their pro-corporate ideology.

In July 2000, CRC published a report entitled Nothing for Free: How Private Judicial Seminars are Undermining Environmental Protections and Breaking the Public’s Trust.  The study – the most thorough investigation of the junkets’ sponsors and participants – revealed a pattern of disturbing facts, including the following:

  • In 10 of the last decade’s most dramatic departures from established precedent, the judge striking down the environmental protections took part in at least one junket.
  • In six of these cases, the judge attended the seminar while the case was pending.
  • In at least three of these cases, the judge ruled in favor of a litigant bankrolled by the seminar’s sponsors.
  • In one of the decade’s most infamous environmental rulings, a judge ruled to uphold habitat protection, attended a seminar, came back, switched his vote, and wrote an opinion striking down a central component of the Endangered Species Act.

CRC Executive Director Doug Kendall, who will be featured on 20/20, is available for interviews. Please call Doug at (202) 296-6889, ext. 3. 

To read CRC’s report, Nothing for Free, click here.  For a complete list of judges attending the Tucson seminar featured on 20/20, click here.

For Immediate Release: Contact:
September 20, 2000 Doug Kendall
202-296-6889 (ext. 3)

The Truth about the Judicial Education Reform Act of 2000

     Rather than seizing the opportunity yesterday to address the growing, well-documented appearance problems stemming from privately-funded judicial seminars, the U.S. Judicial Conference went on the attack. Just days after a press flap about the Chief Justice endorsing an appropriations rider that would lift the 11-year-old ban on federal judges accepting honoraria, the Judicial Conference condemned a set of common-sense reforms proposed by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) in their Judicial Education Reform Act of 2000 (S. 2990) as "hasty" and "overly broad."

     The statement released by the Judicial Conference is internally contradictory. On one hand, the Conference states the "Judiciary has not had an opportunity to study carefully and comment on the pending legislation." On the other, the Conference couples that assertion with a laundry list of overwrought attacks on the bill's allegedly "sweeping restrictions." Even a cursory check of the Conference's expressed concerns illustrates that the first position is the correct one: the Conference has not closely examined S. 2990.

Judicial Conference Assertion #1:
"The proposed legislation would appear to subject judges to the most restrictive rules of any government officials."

The Truth About S. 2990:
The prohibition on seminar gifts required by S. 2990 is patterned after and no more restrictive than the gift ban that already applies to executive branch officials, including assistant United States attorneys and Department of Justice attorneys that are involved in litigation (see 5 C.F.R. § 2635.201-05).

Judicial Conference Assertion # 2:
S. 2990 would mandate an inappropriate censorship role for the Federal Judicial Center.

The Truth About S. 2990:
Judge Rya Zobel, the former Director of the Federal Judicial Center, recently testified that:

    "In all of our judicial education . . . we assure that judges receive balanced and practical explanations of the governing law and its implications, and the economic and scientific factors that increasingly affect litigation."

S. 2990 would simply ask the Federal Judicial Center to play a similar role in ensuring that education seminars funded by the taxpayers are legitimate.

Judicial Conference Assertion # 3:
"The [Federal Judicial] Center is charged by law with providing continuing education for judges and court personnel. For 32 years the Center has ably performed this task."

The Truth About S. 2990:
Actually, this statement is true, and S. 2990 does nothing to limit the Center; in fact, it expands its role in education. The question is why, if the Center has performed ably for 32 years, are lavish, biased, corporate-funded trips for judges necessary?

Judicial Conference Assertion # 4:
"The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, itself, strongly counsels against undue and overly broad efforts to limit or restrict anyone's access to ideas."

The Truth About S. 2990:
S. 2990 does not prohibit any judge from attending any event of any sort.

S. 2990 simply blocks travel and education gifts offered because of the judge's position as a federal judge. S. 2990 also contains a very broad exception allowing large gifts to judges in any circumstance where a judge "participates in a seminar as a speaker, panel participant, or otherwise presents information." Nothing in the Constitution enshrines the right of judges to receive education and travel gifts from corporations and special interests trying to advance a legal agenda in the courts.

Judicial Conference Assertion # 5:
"This is not a time for hasty legislation"

The Truth About S. 2990:
Nothing about S. 2990 is hasty. Since the practice began more than 20 years ago, the Judicial Conference has repeatedly been asked to address the appearance problems stemming from corporate-funded judicial seminars, held in resort locations. In 1998, several members of Congress demanded that the Judiciary revisit and tighten the ethical standards in this area. The Judicial Conference refused in a report it approved at its September 1998 meeting. Before the Judicial Conference meeting this week, Senators Kerry and Feingold wrote to the Judicial Conference explaining that their "clear preference is for the Judicial Conference to make legislation unnecessary." The Judicial Conference has had more than enough opportunities to act. They have refused to do so. The time for a legislative solution is now.


For Immediate Release: Contact:
11 a.m., July 24, 2000 Doug Kendall
202-296-6889 (ext. 3)

Mike Casey
202-667-6982 (ext. 3006)

Corporate-Backed Junkets for Federal Judges Linked to Recent Wave of Anti-Environmental Rulings

Report Shows Judge Flipped Vote after Attending Seminar, Legislation to be Introduced Banning Trips

WASHINGTON - Over the last decade, federal courts have become increasingly hostile to environmental protections, while corporations and pro-business special interests have poured millions into lavish, ideologically-slanted seminars for federal judges held at luxury locations.

Today, Community Rights Counsel (CRC) linked these two developments, providing compelling evidence of the corrosive effect of these junkets. CRC's report, "Nothing for Free," revealed:

  • in a key endangered species case, the judge upheld habitat protection, attended a seminar, then switched his vote;
  • in 10 of the decade's most dramatic departures from established precedent, the judge striking down the environmental protection attended at least one junket;
  • in six of these cases, the judge attended a corporate-funded seminar while the case was pending before his or her court; and
  • in at least three cases, the judge ruled in favor of a litigant bankrolled by the seminar's sponsors.

"Corporate special interests are attempting to buy judicial influence at the highest levels and it appears to be working," said Doug Kendall, the author of the report. Kendall heads CRC, a public interest law firm that helps local governments defend environmental and community protections.

CRC also posted a web site, www.tripsforjudges.org, that contains the first ever, searchable database showing privately funded trips taken by federal judges from 1992 to 1998.

CRC's work has drawn the notice Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who has proposed legislation that would ban privately funded judicial education, and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), who issued a statement today condemning the trips. It also has earned CRC the support of environmentalists concerned that the junkets are a form of corporate influence peddling to federal judges.

"Judges don't need free vacations bankrolled by some of America's biggest polluters and lobbying forces, especially given that taxpayers already fund continuing education for judges to the tune of $20 million a year," said Environmental Working Group spokesman Mike Casey. EWG is a watchdog organization that has written to Chief Justice William Rehnquist seeking a ban on the junkets and Internet posting of judges' personal disclosure forms.