Bad Deeds for 12-4-2011

 

Galveston County Judge Presides Over Legal Cases With No Law Experience and Only 46 Hours of Training – In Texas, county judges are primarily administrators who sit on County Commissioners Court. They are not expected to handle criminal matters. However, Galveston County Judge Mark Henry (Republican) regularly presides over judicial proceedings even though he isn’t a lawyer, a practice that worries some attorneys and judges.

Henry, a pilot by training, gets himself an extra $15,000 a year by presiding over court proceedings. He is the first Galveston County judge since at least 1967 to assume the judicial duties that provide the supplement to his $133,600 annual salary.

Henry has only completed 46 hours of judicial training. Several attorneys and former county judges questioned the practicality of a county judge in such a large county taking time away from demanding administrative duties. They also questioned the propriety of a non-lawyer acting as a judge in an urban county.

“No competent defense attorney would agree to have an inexperienced amateur on the bench,” attorney Winston Cochran said.

Henry has presided over misdemeanor plea bargains, which worries state District Judge Susan Criss.

“There are certain things in my job that I do that I have to have legal training to do,” she said. “I am not comfortable with someone who is not a lawyer taking pleas.”

 

Karl Rove Attempting to Weaken Rules to Allow His Super PAC to Coordinate With Republican Candidates – Karl Rove and his Super PAC American Crossroads want to tear down the thin wall that prevents Super PACs — which can accept unlimited, easily hidden contributions — from running ads coordinated directly with candidates and their campaigns — which have strict contribution limits.

The prohibition on coordination is one of the few remaining rules separating our so-called democratic elections from becoming a no-holds-barred, corporate cash free-for-all. So it’s no surprise that Rove has asked the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) if he can get around it, by running coordinated political advertisements, featuring candidates the PAC is supporting.

The FEC has already issued four draft opinions. It is supposed to issue a final ruling within days and is accepting public comments on Rove’s request.

The deeply damaging Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate donations and spending by Political Action Committees, so long as they were independent of the campaign.

But Rove’s FEC request flouts even that. Rove literally states that what is coordinated, shouldn’t be considered coordinated:

“While these advertisements would be fully coordinated with incumbent Members of Congress facing re-election in 2012, they would presumably not qualify as ‘coordinated communications,’.”
And yet, three of the four draft responses posted by the FEC would allow Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC, to air these coordinated-yet-not-coordinated ads featuring, and approved by, political candidates.1

The limits that exist to prevent coordination between Super PACs, officially known as “independent-expenditure only committees,” and political candidates are already astonishingly weak — allowing discussion of strategy, and even for candidates to fundraise directly for a Super PAC.2

Now Rove wants to use these unlimited pots of Super PAC money to essentially fund candidate’s official advertising campaigns. That’s going way, way too far. And we need to tell the FEC to stop it.

Tell the FEC: Reject Karl Rove’s Super PAC power grab. Submit a comment now.

1. “Four Ways The FEC Could Rule On Uncoordinated Coordination By American Crossroads,” Talking Points Memo, November 28, 2011
2. “Uncoordinated Coordination: Six Reasons Limits on Super PACs Are Barely Limits at All,” Talking Points Memo, November 21, 2011

 

The Next Republican Joke: Donald Trump to Host Republican Presidential Debate – Yes, folks, Donald Trump is going to moderate a Republican presidential debate. Sponsored by Newsmax, one of the internet’s most conservative websites, the newly arranged event will be held in Des Moines on December 27th — just one week before the Iowa caucus. Grandmaster of the 1% presiding!

I can’t wait for Trump to tell one of the candidates, “You’re fired!”

Regards,

Jim