A reader asks me to blog about an expose in this Sunday’s New Orleans Times-Picayune, calling it “appalling.” In 2003-2004, one judge (presumably the highest-spending judge) spent $16,717/year on travel, compared to the average $8,000 spent by other judges.
I don’t know whether this is a good judge or a bad judge, but that shouldn’t matter to my analysis. I’m less appalled. Someone has to be the highest-spending judge, and this one doesn’t appear to have violated any rules. $4,400 in taxpayer money was spent to teach a course in Colorado, but if the judge had been reimbursed by the Louisiana Association of Defense Counsel, different people would be complaining about the supposed conflict of interest. The newspaper successfully nitpicks rental-car and airport transportation costs—but the judge must have travelled coach, because there’s no complaint about his airplane tickets. One can question the political savvy of a judge who doesn’t realize that his expense account reports are going to be scrutinized. One can also complain that the money comes from civil district court filing fees, but, at the end of the day, money is fungible and it doesn’t really matter what pot the money comes from. It would probably be more efficient to end travel reimbursements and just raise salaries—but because of tax implications, maybe not.
Louisiana state judges make less than first-year associates in private law firms, and I’m not about to complain that a judge was a little generous with himself in taking advantage of available and legal perks to the tune of a few thousand dollars. There appears to already exist a check in the system, in that this judge’s request for a week-long educational trip to Italy was rejected.
Or am I so overly jaded by plaintiffs’ bar abuses in the billions that I should be more appalled? Feel free to comment in the comment section, but be polite and on-topic.