Baron grants an interview to the Texas Lawyer, and makes some implausible claims:
Posts Tagged ‘campaign regulation’
Yes, I’m being facetious
Where’s the trial lawyer bringing a class action on behalf of all of the people who were defrauded when they gave money to John Edwards’s presidential campaign? It’s certainly a much more plausible claim of causation, reliance, and financial injury than the typical class action.
More seriously, I hope someone somewhere is investigating whether Fred Baron violated federal campaign finance law when he set aside tens of thousands of dollars to pay Rielle Hunter hush money without disclosing the payments on behalf of Edwards. Edwards said he was in the Beverly Hilton to help keep the story from becoming public, which makes it seem unlikely he’s telling the truth when he said that he had no knowledge that Baron moved Hunter to California. Alas, ABC didn’t ask the right follow-up questions, such as how Edwards thought meeting Hunter in a hotel room would help keep the story quiet. And “Fred Baron” appears nowhere in the New York Times story, even as he is a major fund-raiser for Barack Obama today. Obama is still running for president, right?
Yet more Edwards campaign-cash laundering
Big-league Arkansas trial lawyer Tab Turner did it, and was fined $9,500. Big-league Michigan trial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger did it, and managed to beat the rap at his recent trial. And now we learn that big-league California trial lawyer Pierce O’Donnell did it too: evaded limits on campaign contributions to John Edwards by reimbursing underlings to enable them to contribute. Would it be simpler to compile a list of the big Edwards backers who did obey the law? (WSJ law blog, Jul. 24). More on Edwards campaign finance shenanigans here.
Update Jul. 25, NLJ: O’Donnell indicted, based on a separate episode of laundering of contributions (to Los Angeles mayoral campaign of James Hahn).
Detroit Free Press on Fieger acquittal
Detroit’s liberal newspaper voice, which supports extending campaign finance law, has this to say in an editorial:
…There is no doubt that Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger completely subverted [the aims of campaign law] when he essentially laundered through employees of his law firm hefty contributions to the 2004 presidential campaign of John Edwards.
But can you make a federal case out of it? A U.S. District Court jury didn’t think so, refusing Monday to convict Fieger and law partner Vernon (Ven) Johnson of doing anything illegal. So congratulations to Fieger for gaming the system and then beating it.
But that doesn’t make what he did right. …
…the system ought to have some integrity, and the limits established by law ought to be enforced. Fieger got around them by being clever, pleading ignorance, then getting a jury to see it his way. It certainly helped that the local U.S. attorney’s office had been frighteningly aggressive in its pursuit of Fieger, and that he had the cash to hire an attorney who reputedly has never lost a case. Yes, money matters in criminal justice at least as much as it does in politics.
No doubt, Fieger’s acquittal gives a little more mettle to other fat cats who want to skirt the law. It’s a victory for him, but a step back for the political process.
Fieger himself has tried to put out the line that it is only because of some mean old plot against politically active trial lawyers that he was ever prosecuted at all. If the Free Press editorial is any indication, it doesn’t look as he’s getting very far with that line. More here and here.
Further: Scott Greenfield, and Freep reporter Dawson Bell (unless your name is Geoffrey Fieger, don’t try to get away with doing what he did: “It’s still a crime.”). Ted in comments adds: “And let’s not forget the all-too-typical and appalling sight of the defendant partying with the jurors he snookered.” Per the account in the Free Press, “Champagne sat on ice at each table” in the Greektown establishment. “A stocked bar was in the corner.” Earlier on post-trial juror fraternization with winning disputants and their lawyers here, here, etc.
McCain-Feingold and the Fieger acquittal
Terry Carter in the ABA Journal has more on the legal background:
The straw-donor law invoked against Fieger has been around since 1972, though Congress upped the ante and made it a felony as part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, known as the McCain-Feingold Act. In all these years there has been but one jury verdict concerning the law, before it was a felony, and it was for acquittal. (There have been several plea agreements in recent years.)
Thus no court has crafted an opinion concerning the law itself, according to some of the few experts in this narrow slice of election law.
Spence told the jury that the government tried to use snippets of law to go after Fieger, a prominent plaintiffs lawyer and former Democratic candidate for governor in Michigan, for political purposes. The campaign finance law (2 U.S.C. § 441f) says:
“No person shall make a contribution in the name of another person or knowingly permit his name to be used to effect such a contribution, and no person shall knowingly accept a contribution made by one person in the name of another person.”
The defense argued that the law, as worded, does not prohibit reimbursing people who make contributions.
If in fact Fieger’s acquittal will be cited in favor of the notion that the use of straw donors reimbursed after the fact is lawful after all, that might seem to blow a rather large hole in the side of the McCain-Feingold law — which makes it all the odder that the Fieger trial drew so little attention from either backers or critics of that law on the national level.
Fieger gets off
All those reimbursements of employees who donated to John Edwards? Just one vast coincidence, not a purposeful way of evading federal campaign finance laws. Now that the verdict’s in, could we please repeal the campaign finance laws in question ASAP, before some less lucky soul tries the same thing and gets sentenced to time in the slammer because his name isn’t Geoffrey Fieger and his lawyer isn’t Gerry Spence? (David Ashenfelter and Joe Swickard, “Fieger, law partner acquitted of illegal political donations”, Detroit Free Press, Jun. 2).
February 23 roundup
- Easterbrook: “One who misuses litigation to obtain money to which he is not entitled is hardly in a position to insist that the court now proceed to address his legitimate claims, if any there are…. Plaintiffs have behaved like a pack of weasels and can’t expect any part of their tale be believed.” [Ridge Chrysler v. Daimler Chrysler via Decision of the Day]
- Retail stores and their lawyers find sending scare letters with implausible threats of litigation against accused shoplifters mildly profitable. [WSJ]
- Kentucky exploring ways to reform mass-tort litigation in wake of fen-phen scandal. [Mass Tort Prof; Torts Prof; AP/Herald-Dispatch; earlier: Frank @ American]
- After Posner opinion, expert should be looking for other lines of work. [Kirkendall; Emerald Investments v. Allmerica Financial Life Insurance & Annuity]
- Judge reduces jury verdict in Premarin & Prempro case to “only” $58 million. And I still haven’t seen anyone explain why it makes sense for a judge to decide damages awards were “the result of passion and prejudice,” but uphold a liability finding from the same impassioned and prejudiced jury. Wyeth will appeal. [W$J via Burch; AP/Business Week]
- Judge lets lawyers get to private MySpace and Facebook postings. [OnPoint; also Feb. 19]
- Nanny staters’ implausible case for regulating salt. [Sara Wexler @ American; earlier: Nov. 2002]
- Doctor: usually it’s cheaper to pay than to go to court. [GNIF BrainBlogger]
- Trial lawyers in Colorado move to eviscerate non-economic damages cap in malpractice cases [Rocky Mountain News]
- Bonin: don’t regulate free speech on the Internet in the name of “campaign finance” [Philadelphia Inquirer]
- “Executives face greater risks—but investors are no safer.” [City Journal]
- Professors discuss adverse ripple effects from law school affirmative action without mentioning affirmative action. Paging Richard Sander. Note also the absence of “disparate impact” from the discussion. [PrawfsBlawg; Blackprof]
- ATL commenters debate my American piece on Edwards. [Above the Law]
Super Tuesday thought
McCain-Feingold is based on the premise that money used to purchase speech distorts the political process because candidates can use money to fool voters, and therefore the speech purchased by money must be regulated. First Amendment limitations that not even the O’Connor Court was willing to override, however, prevented McCain-Feingold from reaching the spending of personal funds to self-promote. Thus, multi-millionaire Mitt Romney, because he was able to spend millions of dollars of his own money to promote his message would, according to the premises of McCain-Feingold, prevent candidates without those millions from winning elections. If those premises are correct. Which is why John McCain’s decisive victory yesterday is simultaneously a decisive repudiation of the campaign finance law he is most known for.
“Drunk on power: campaign reformers can’t help it”
Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Tom Harkin (D-Ia.), Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) have teamed up to co-sponsor a proposed constitutional amendment that “would overturn U.S. Supreme Court decisions that limit Congress’ power to regulate the funding of political campaigns. … the amendment would repeal the 1st Amendment as it relates to campaign finance. This would be the first time in our history that we altered the Constitution to curtail liberties protected by the Bill of Rights. It would also have the effect, not accidental, of protecting incumbent members of Congress from being unseated at the polls.” (Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune/syndicated, Oct. 28).
P.S. Then there’s the possibility that the talk-radio-stifling Fairness Doctrine will be reintroduced in 2009 or after (John Fund, OpinionJournal.com, Oct. 29). And while “Crooked Timber” may be a pleasantly evocative name for a weblog, would arch-liberal Isaiah Berlin really have been so keen to use the state’s coercive power against unwanted speech? (Sullivan, Bainbridge)(& welcome Salon Blog Report readers).
October 25 roundup
- Lawyer for Mothers Against Drunk Driving: better not call yourself Mothers Against Anything Else without our say-so [Phoenix New Times]
- Ohio insurer agrees to refund $51 million in premiums, but it’s a mutual, so money’s more or less moving from customers’ left to right pockets — except for a big chunk payable to charity, and $16 million to you-know-who [Business First of Columbus; Grange Mutual Casualty]
- Sources say Judge Pearson, of pants suit fame, isn’t getting reappointed to his D.C. administrative law judge post [WaPo]
- Between tighter safety rules and rising liability costs, more British towns are having to do without Christmas light displays [Telegraph]
- So strong are the incentives to settle class-action securities suits that only four have been tried to a verdict in past twelve years [WSJ law blog]. More: D&O Diary.
- It’s so cute when a family’s small kids all max out at exactly the same $2,300 donation to a candidate, like when they dress in matching outfits or something [WaPo via Althouse]
- Idea of SueEasy.com website for potential injury plaintiffs [Oct. 19] deemed “incredibly stupid” [Turkewitz]
- New at Point of Law: med-mal reports from Texas and Colorado; Lynne-Stewart-at-Hofstra wrap-up (more); immune to reason on vaccines; turning tax informants into bounty-hunters?; and much more;
- $800,000 race-bias suit filed after restaurant declines to provide free extra lemons with water [Madison County Record]
- Settling disabled-rights suit, biggest card banking network agrees to install voice-guidance systems on 30,000 ATMs to assist blind customers [NFB]
- Think twice before publishing “ratings” of Pennsylvania judges [six years ago on Overlawyered]