standards right now. technology creates a new way to pass medicine but with those patience. acid is often the case we will have to take a look at that. that is the conversation i hope we have today. thank you very much. . .c-span starting monday, augut

august 47. >> state supreme court justice james nelson and former mississippi state supreme court justice oliver diaz talked today about corporate money influence in state court. from the center for american progress, this is an hour. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. >> thank you all for coming. i am the director of legal progress here. it is not a pleasure to welcome you all this morning. hard as it might actually be to believe, we are going to take a break for the next hour for some presidential politics and talk about the third coequal branch of government. but in doing so we are actually

not shifting away from the economic issues that really face all americans and communities across the country every day. in fact and a quick the opposite. whether you are an employee has been injured on the job or a consumer with credit card or a mother whose child was injured by defective products as a buffer or one of the millions of americans to have had their houses foreclosed on, he turned to state courts for protection. indeed, 95 percent of all litigation in this country happens in state courts. but, unfortunately, 39 states and the union, 39 states and the union holds some form of the elections. might not be possible for americans to truly get a fair day in court. following the citizens united decision judges are increasingly having to choose between starting to fighting with special interests or to side with the law. today we are releasing to reports that highlight the

interest of corporate campaign cash and the influence it is having a the american justice system. specifically, we tell how soaring costs of judicial elections, some $230 million spent on court campaigns in just the last ten years have led to a state supreme court decisions that favored corporate litigants over individuals seeking to hold accountable. indeed, we have seen a trend where corporate campaign money has resulted in increasingly conservative pro corporate anti consumer decisions. in a company report highlighting referendum on the ballot this november. the processor which is judges are chosen even more political. ultimately, i think u.s. supreme court justice sandra day o'connor said it best. we all expect judges to be accountable to the law rather than political supporters or special interests. elected judges in many ways are compelled to solicit money for the election campaign whether or

not these contributions actually tip the scales of justice, three of four americans believe the campaign contributions affect corpsman decisions. this crisis of confidence and impartiality of the judiciary is real and growing. real and growing crisis made worse by the supreme court 2010 citizens united decision is the topic of today's conversation. we have with a sedate three people here know well and personally the effects of campaign money on actual governing and judging. today we will discuss once its attempt on the idea that corporations are people and the affect the campaign cash is having across the country. so directly to my right, the justice on the montana supreme court appointed in 1993 and prior to his appointment worked in private practice and served as a glacier county attorney. he served as a first attempt in the united states army in 1966

to 1969 and graduated from the university of idaho at george washington university law school. a widely noted dissent on the case earlier this year challenging montana campaign finance law after citizens united. the decision that the u.s. supreme court justice reversed a decline in the opportunity to reconsider citizens united. to my right, a former justice on the mississippi supreme court, appointed in 2001 election to keep his see later that year. after several state supreme court's held that these damages are unconstitutional, karl rove and the ads its u.s. chamber of commerce masterminded a campaign to unseat judges instead of the way toward reform which included he and his reelection efforts and even prosecute him on falls criminal charges. he was acquitted of all charges. the story, the fiction as in john grisham's book the appeal, the historic not truly be more

emblematic of the increasing polarization. he graduated from the university of mississippi high school and works in private practice. and leading the discussion today , a counselor for policy for citizens of american progress in the presidency of the account action fund. in addition to being a formal member of congress, a lawyer by training, a graduate of yale law school and has a wide range of experience in issues of law both in the united states and abroad. time manage team working on conflict of volition and democratic transitions in africa, afghanistan, and other regions and in parcourse on justice and security at the university of virginia and the university. acting spokesperson to the international prosecutor for the special court of sierra leone from the tribunal warrants to the diplomatic that forced. please join me in welcoming all of them today. [applause]

>> i want to first start out by saying, andrew and everyone that is part of a little progress team at the rule of law program here for the center of american progress and we will talk today about the report at the back of the room, but i really do encourage everyone to read them. the dripping at the appeal which is to be recommended, but very, very important. i do want to thank them for their rig work and hope folks have a chance to read through them. i am honored to be on the states today with two real heavyweights of the legal community. and are to be with them. really going to let them drive the profited today. if you could set the stage about where we are and what the stakes are going forward and the wake of that only citizens united, but cases and legal challenges that have come in the wake of

that including one in which you offered just the end of last week. this did a play right now, what does it mean? .. impartiality, fairness, making

decisions based upon the rule of law, and giving people their day in court and a fair hearing of their dispute, and i think that's what's in play here. that's what is important about the whole debate, the whole dialogue, is the control of the judiciary. obviously if people can throw enough money into judicial races and effectively represent -- or elect justices and judges who are more interested in promoting some court -- part of an idealogue or some particular special interest philosophy, they're going to do this, because money talks, as we know from citizens united, speech is money, and does affect things. >> justice, you had the unique perspective of being part of the political process and then the

judicial process and then the judicial political process. talk a little bit about what it means -- what you're seeing in terms of the state of the judicial election process and from your own experience what that is looking more and more like the political campaigns that fail to inspire so many right now. >> okay. well, you mentioned earlier the appeal. john gresham, aim glad somebody is able to make money off my political career. i certainly haven't. but i am in a unique position, having both been electioned and appointed. some folks say appointed judicial system is somehow superior to an elected process. it's not necessarily so. the appointed process is extremely political as well. you have to be connect, know the right people, have the right recommendations for whoever is making the appointment, but the political process is entirely different. we heard andrew mention the ranks of sandra day o'connor.

three-quarters of the american population feel campaign contributions influence the decisions of the judiciary. that's a sad state of affairs when # 5% of the people in the country believe political contributions influence justice. what even more telling is another statistic and that's a poll of state court judges 50. % of state court judges themselves believe contributions from campaign donors influence the outcome of judicial decisions, and when you get half of the judiciary thinking that -- these are the folks that are supposed to be completely up biased and making decisions based upon the law and the facts so when half of the judges feel that campaign contributions actually influence the outcome of decisions, we got a problem. >> talk a little bit about who is bringing the money into these races and to what extent has the

amount of money has changed. who is spending the money, why are they spending it and to what extent has this changed? recent years. >> i think historically, lawyers were basically the folks who contributed to judicial elections. that's how it all started. lawyers had an interest in the system. both defense lawyers, plaintiffs lawyers. we as supreme court justices and judges like to think that, you know, we're important or we're well-known. people don't know who jumps are. we're anonymous. a few appellate geeks who know something about the -- >> many of them here tonight. >> fellow geeks might be in the audience and i'm one of them. but other than that select group of folks they don't know who the judges are, don't know much about us in mississippi in 1990 -- of course i'm from mississippi, and winning

justice -- somebody running for the supreme court, spent an average of $25,000, in 1990. by 2000, ten-year period, the average winning campaign for the supreme court in mississippi was up to $1 million. that amount of time, ten-year period, you saw exponential amounts of money, and it came about through special interests, and corporations that decided that they -- i think they thought they could see these elections which turned out to be fairly easy picking, and they could pump lots lots of money i. carl rove had a telling quote at one point help said that -- he said a couple million dollars in unanswered tv ads does wonders, and i domestic think it was the wonders for the judges he was talking about. he had his interests. so, people saw the opportunity there and started putting money

into judicial elections, and it was fairly easy to influence at that point. >> justice nelson, what has been your experience? >> i agree with the remarks that were just made. montana has historically been -- there's less people in montana than probably half of washington, dc. it's typically been a low-budget, low-campaign contribution state. when i ran for -- montana, you can be appointed if there's a vacancy in the office and then you have to run for election, and i've run for election three times. one of them, the last one, was very nasty and very contested. at that time the largest campaign contribution that could be made for a justice on the supreme court was $250. i raised $250,000 for my

election campaign, most of which was spent on media. now, this year in montana we have a contested senate race, contested gubernatorial race, we've got one contested supreme court race, the ice noncontested. and the supreme court races are being sort of are in the radar, which is where they typically are, and it's correct that typically it's attorneys that give to these campaigns, but i'll say this. in the montana race there was a primary. we knock out all but two, and then those go on to the general election. one person was not elected. one of the people who was elected, over half of the money that was spent in her campaign

came from outside pac. i don't know what the effect of money is going to be in the general election. that remains to be seen. but increasingly i think that montana is going to join the rest of the states that -- where campaign money and campaign contributions are going to start affecting these races. >> we see what happens with citizens united, when outside interest group dumped a lot of money in a political campaign. they certainly try to influence the outcome of the campaign. when you have this large amount of money coming into a campaign, there's a difference between, say, a race for president or united states senate and the judicial campaign. in presidential campaign, you see -- we see it right now, it's happening all over the country. the ads by independent groups. mostly negative, but they try to give you some information to

base a decision on one of these candidate but no matter how much money they're putting into the presidential election, president obama, we know president obama. these outside groups are not going to be able to define him. we know mitt romney. he has run for president before. he has been running for a while now. we know something about him. he can't be defined by these groups. in a judicial campaign, judges are not known. like i said before, and so the opportunity there is to define a judge, and when you can define that person and they don't have enough money or funds to respond or they don't have their own independent expenditure group behind them, if they're being defined by one group, then it's easy to pick off a judge. so, that's the problem. it's not equivalent to a national election like for president and when you do the same thing in a judicial election. it's completely different. >> the other thing is, not just citizen is united.

republican party in minnesota are verse white. another very important case, and if you're not familiar with that, the supreme court ruled that while judicial candidates could not promise how they would vote, they could at least announce their position on various issues. and most states at that time had what they announced prohibitions in their ethical rules that didn't allow judges to do that. so, now in addition to outside groups defining who judges are, judges can essentially have the constitutional right to go out and define themselves. i'm for this, i'm for that. i'm against this. i'm against that. you can't promise how you're going to vote, but the public isn't stupid. if -- neither are the judgeses. if i announce to people that, i'm pro choice, pro life, you know, two and two is four and common sense prevails and people are going to take that as well,

that's his position, that's how he's going to vote. >> you boast raised issues about differences between the judicial context and the campaign context. one that you noted is the idea that it's actually in some way worse in a judicial case becauseout don't have a megaphone, and politicians can go out and make news, earned media. it's more typical to go out and raise money as a politician than as a judge of this scale, and that is the difference. another, as you said, the idea that typically an element of judging has been not to prejudge, whereas in campaigns it's about voters wanting to know where people stand. one thing that stressed people is the differences between the two decisions, whether the supreme court essentially, one might argue in a world they actually understood, judicial elections, took a fairly different position than they took in something that they may not really understand as well,

the perception of corruption in a political election. do we see an emerging potential ly split jurisprudence between how the supreme court streets elections we'll heat in another direction. >> i don't thing caperton is going go away but it's important to differentiate between what caperton says and citizens united. people can say what they want. they can spend money how they want. caperton was purely a case that said so if much money is spent in a judicial campaign that it is going to affect the outcome of a particular decision for a particular litigant, then that judge has to recuse himself or herself. that's all caperton really accomplished. >> it and it was very limited, not a broad decision. why don't you give the background. i should have explained about the case as well.

>> well, i'm -- caperton basically -- this is very summarily. >> caperton involved a case where a particular person was running for, what, alabama or -- >> west virginia supreme court. >> and a person who had a case penning before the court -- almost like what gresh sham wrote -- the person with the case pending before the court, wanted this particular person to be elected, so he dumped a tremendous amount of -- millions of dollars into that person's campaign. and the person won, and then predictably the person voted in favor of the litigants and it was a split decision so it reversed the lower court decision that was against the litigant, to a supreme court decision in favor of the litigant. under those circumstances, the supreme court held that it was just too much of an appearance of impropriety. especially given the amount of

money that was dumped into the campaign. >> do you see this as being something where there could be a different set of juris prince in judicial elections or a question of bringing due process, perception o corruption charges versus a first amendment issue? >> i think that the citizens united decision is broader than the caperton decision. when you're dealing with first amendment issues, political speech, it's applied to any election, whether it be judicial, city council, up through president. caperton decision dealt very narrowly with recuse sal and -- recusal and when there's an appearance of impropriety or appearance that the judge should recuse, then that's when it would apply. and the supreme court did not even mandate it. they said that they should send it back for review and let the

judge decide. i think the citizens united decision is much broader. >> what makes matters worse is that -- citizen united was written by kennedy, and kennedy was just absolutely dismisssive of the caperton decision,, in te citizen is united case. so, i don't see any light at the end of the tunnel where caperton is going to be the big answer to citizen united in judicial races. >> i might say no findings of fact -- >> actually made the effort to go out and do what -- the way that's supposed to play out. one of the things i would posit about this is that some of the issues we're talking about here the issue of pro consumer versus pro corporate, what might be the current democrat/republican split in ideology.

this is more of a populist to corporatist, or pro citizen verse pro powerful kind of dynamic. the politics of the south has shifted -- i come from virginia, you're from mississippi. the rockie mountain west has a lib bert tearan -- libertarian, and some are surprised not seeing the montana pushing back. what are the lines being drown here and is it one about different ideologies on the court or purely a matter of following the money to understand these divisions? >> on the supreme court? >> on the supreme court, but also trickling into the state elections. in other words, when you see this as -- the montana supreme court having put a fairly forceful and direct pushback to toe the supreme court on that, why do you see that coming from a state like montana as opposed to something that might be a

more traditionally liberal state. >> well, that's complicated, and i'm probably getting way out of my pay grade here. but when i started practicing law in montana, montana was a progressive state. as -- in 1994, or '93, wherever the gingrich revolution took place, montana started going more and more in that direction, and although montana is typically composed of blue collar workers, farmers, ranchers, that sort of thing, that group of people have followed, i think, the trend nationally that the group of people have been following, towards the more conservative sector.

most of the people on the supreme court are not quite as old as i am but close to it. so, we come from different era. and i think this election, at least from my -- the seat i'm vacating on the court will be the first -- well, second person actually -- kind of a new generation. so, we'll -- should be asking that question in 10-15 years from now. >> it's not an easy left-right breakdown, i don't think. in mississippi we have -- we don't -- judicial elections are not run by party sod we're not republican and democrat. judges run nonpartisan, as they do in many states. so, you don't necessarily get the republican -- democratic breakdown in judicial races and it is a lot about the money, and the groups that back it. the breakdown that we've seen in

mississippi, in addition to corporations, is insurance companies, which may be the same thing -- and doctors, medical providers on one side, and lawyers and labor and unions on another side. and it's not an equivalency at all. i think all of the statistics show that the, lack of a better determination left side lawyer grouped and union groups are outspent and many times five or six to one, and so you've got these huge amounts of money coming in, and there's no equivalency to balance those out. >> you know, tom, another factor that is underplayed and not stated enough, is the amount that the christian right has played in this whole thing, too because that i think has made a difference in my state. in 2004, i guess it was, we had

a marriage amendment pass in the constitution. 62% of people voted in favor of it. i was dumb founded. it doesn't reflect what i think most people actually believe in montana about that issue, but -- >> one of the interesting things is when the groups -- the outside groups come in, i've noticed they don't normally -- the ads they run don't normally support their position. they -- when they attack a judicial candidate they do so on grounds other than, oh, he's supporting plaintiffs or not voting probusiness enough. what they do is use issues that will inflame the public. usually using decisions from the judge's past career. i don't now if you saw the movie "coffee." it was an expo say on corporate influence in the entire judiciary mitchell wife tells

the story about how these groups came into our campaign. they start running these massive amounts of ad talking about what a horrible person i was, that they piled money bags on a bench, a judge's ben, and said, justice diaz is accepting tens of thousands of dollars from lawyer groups and he went ton allow a cocaine dealer to be set out of prison. that's an appellate justice's job is to review criminal cases and if there's error you overturn and a judge can't do it by themselves. in mississippi we have nine judges and have to heave five votes. so these ads were horrible, and we didn't want our kids to see it. we had very young kids and we didn't want them seeing this on television, and so we kept the television off as we were getting ready for school, and one morning we forgot and were getting ready for school, and my daughter is in the other rom and all of a sudden we hear her

yelling, yay, yay, yepee, daddy, we're rich, we have lots of money being given to us. the ads didn't necessarily have the effect they wanted on my household, but they did on the public. >> well, you know, certainly something that comes across strongly, which i should mention from double day press and doing pr for john gresham. but it guess in detail there about the fact that in many cases the money is spent based on those looking for return on investment, based on specific corporate liability case or more generalized issue of liability, consumer protection 0, or arbitration laws and the ad end up being spent largely on the culture or criminal issues, and that the groups that are spending the money don't care. they just want a justice that's going to decide they're way. part of the question back on that is where you went with it,

which is, does this also affect not just the balance of the scales between corporate and consumer interests, but the politicalization of the bench affect hearings in criminal cases in the sense that as a -- when i was briefly a politician, you always think about the 30-second spot. you don't think -- you balance the nuance of good public policymaking against the death panel ads and hopefully we have politicians willing to do what would be a matter of good public policy even if that risks a cheap shot in an ad. but for that to come into a criminal case you talk about it. what do you think is the impact of this, and is the problem money and politics or money and judicial elections or elections themselves, the judges. >> it's a combination. when you have large amounts of money coming into the campaign, it's going to influence both public and the candidate's running, and you're going to

tailor your campaigns to winch that's what a campaign is about. and one of the horrible results of the campaign against me and they used these terrible ads, talking about drug dealers and things -- a fellow member of the mississippi supreme court that i served with saw those ads and after that point, he refused to vote to overturn criminal cases at the mississippi supreme court. i thought it was a horrible, horrible thing for him to do. he lost his next election anyway. i think maybe it showed his character regardless of the way he went. but, yes, judges who are running for election do keep in mind what the next 30-second ad is going to look like, and unfortunately, it does have a spillover effect. i knew what was coming when i voted. i wrote a dissent, actually calling for the abolition of the death mentality mississippi which was not a popular stance

in the south, and i knew what was coming about i did it anyway. you have to have principled people that run for these positions. >> that's the problem. if you don't, if you get big money in these judicial elections and montana is nonpartisan like this state was, and you're not going to get principled people that are willing to run for these offices and get crucified in some high funded campaign, and that's what this amounts to. >> one of the things i was asking beforing are we had an issue where the president of the university of virginia was attempting -- there was an attempt to push her out by certain members on the board, and what was interesting, it wasn't just -- wasn't a liberal versus conservative thing. you saw southern conservatives didn't like the idea of someone trying to come in and use money to determine the outcome or

direction of academia. academia and academic liberty, like judicial independence, is anary ya both conservatives and liberals feel like this is a place that shouldn't be about who has the most money or influence, this should be about -- there should be a sense of fairness or independence. there are certain areas we treat differently in that way. do you see the conversation going forward being one connected to that, primary live about the corporate personhood question? is it about speech or is it about this idea of corruption and influence in a process that should be above that? >> well, i don't know if it's going to be about corporate personhood. it shouldn't be because that has absolutely nothing to do with the decision in citizens united. the personhood thing is a holdover from the time that the 14th amendment was adopted. it should be about corruption,

and the crosssive effects that big money has. i used to think that the judicial process was sack row sanction, and i have been proven wrong on that, and i don't think that -- as long as -- i use the phrase in my dissent in the traditions case about corporatism and as long as i think our national philosophy and economy is dominated by the free market concept, free market will solve all our problems and take care of all of us -- i don't think anything is sacrosanct.

because the best way to control that philosophy is controlling everything, and you control rid by controlling the money. >> ile avoid this to make this about the vice presidential pick based on this answer and keep it on the judiciary. you mentioned, justice diaz, that the issue about -- one of the things we talk about is good people not bothering to run anymore. you mentioned people that you know in the legal community around the country. do you think that there's some impact here of people say, why bother? die really want to go -- you probably in most cases are taking a salary cut to go on the bench. it tenned to be something that you did out of a sense of civic duty and honor. but now that it starts to look more like running for office, is that going to affect whether good people run, the kind of folks that want to put. thes in harm way? a bit of a leading question but i'll ask it.

>> no doubt about it. a lot of good lawyers out there who simply don't want to get involved in the political process. you could -- in the past we could recruit these wise old lawyers to cap their career with a judicial appointment and maybe have them run for election, and it seemed to work for a while. but i think folks looking at it now -- if you got some guy that has had a tremendous legal career, stellar reputation, why sully your reputation, potentially your family, knowing your background is going to be combed through just like any other election. you certainly are going limit the pool of candidates who are interested in seeking these higher judicial positions especially. fortunately, you do have trial bench, but even the trial

judges -- they're somewhat removed from a lot of the large funding that comes into some of the higher judicial positions, and even your good trial judges don't want to leave their local trial bench to run for a higher appellate office because they -- they're not blind. they see what's happening, and they know that every decision they've made in the past is going to be combed through and if they let a rapist go one time in the past because the prosecutor brought the wrong case, it's coming up in an appellate race, so, yes, you're going to limit the pool of candidates who are willing to subject themselves to that scrutiny. >> we're going to open it up to the audience in a second. last question before we do so. you mentioned that you didn't see the corporate personhood challenge as being a particularly promising direction to go with this. we see new ballot initiatives this year in several states that are going to make the process

more political -- less political for judge selection in several states. what is the right thing? if one believes that the corporate in financial influence on our judicial process is corrupting, having a corruptive effect, what is the best way for us to prevent that from happening. >> the best way is to get actual facts out before the public. not a bunch of sound bites. not a bunch of hocus-pocus about corporate personhood. all organizations have free speech rights, and you have much more speech rights now since citizen is united so use them. get the facts out. show how big money is being dumped into a particular judicial race unfairly. show how these ads were false

and misleading, and i think that's the best way to combat it. i hope the public is not swayed by all the sound bites i see happening now, but at least -- i think the best way to it is the attorneys get the facts out, get the truth out, make it prominent. >> there's some other solutions as well. i don't think there's any debate now based upon the united states supreme court ruling that correspond are entitled to speech but there are things we can do about it. it's great britain they have a law if corporations want to get involved in politics they have to have a vote of the shareholders. let the shareholes vote and approve expenditures or political campaign. at least make that decision known to folks who are holding stock in the corporation rather than just a few on the corporate board. so, we have to look at all

sources of different options as well. >> disclosure is important. >> disclosure is in full play, even after citizen is united, and the states, if they can do any one thing i think is important, they can beef up and enforce their disclosure laws. make people aware of who is contributing. i mean, who individually, is funding these things. don't let them hide behind corporate shields and layers of corporate organizations. make them disclose, because at least in the case we had in montana, these people don't like transparency in government. they want to do their dirty work in private. and you don't let them do that. >> in this day and age there's no reason to have a media disclosure either. we have the internet. if you make donations, you can make it public that day or candidates receiving contributions make it known that day. disclosure is extremely important and no reason we can't do it quickly and openly.

>> i will just note on that debate, for much of the last 15-20 years, that has been the conservative's position, at long as you disclose, then you're just letting people decide, there shouldn't be limits. there should simply be transparency now. that the limits have been taken away, disclosure is no longer considered by some to be the conservative position. >> two lawsuits in montana right now, one in federal court, one in state court, attacking that. >> i would say the vast majority of people i know certainly from central and southern virginia, regardless of political affiliation think they have the right no know who is spending the money and what they want for it in return. so perhaps we'll open it up and we'll have someone come around with a microphone here. if you can state your name and affiliation if you have one. >> i'm mitzi with the nato post graduate school. i was married to a judge for 23 years, but he is here in the district. how long are your terms terms at is it like campaigning?

if you don't do it through a party -- i don't understand this process at all. >> well, -- ours is eight years, we run nonpartisan, and basically what you do -- what i did is go out and tout my experience and -- my reputation for fairness and work ethic and things like that, and i even -- even though the i campaigned after republican party versus white, i tried to stay away from implying i was -- took any position on any particular thing. people would ask me, i would just say that matter may come before the court and i'm not going to discuss it. >> were you doing that before we go to justice diaz, were you doing that at county fairs? was it garden clubs? what was -- >> i was doing it everyplace,

and in montana, the -- each major party has dinners in the spring of the year jefferson-jackson day dinners or lincoln day dinners and most of the judicial candidates felt compelled to go to both. some were important, some not so important but i took those position at those dinners -- or didn't take a position. >> mississippi is the same way. eight-year terms. i. i served on both the court of appeals and the supreme court. and in past it was just like any other political campaign, without taking real firm stands on issues. you tout your experience. i ate lots of chicken in mississippi and fried fish and lions clubs, rotary clubs,

jefferson-jackson day dinners. but we also relied on lawyers. lawyers generally know the judicial candidates. they're the ones who appear before us, they have cases and watch the decisions of the court, and in my races i relied on my friends who were lawyers throughout the state. lawyers actually served as leaders in their local communities and a lot of folks look to the lawyers in their community for guidance, especially in judicial election. the problem we have now is that system is antiquated. when you have television ads coming in in my race, the u.s. chamber of commerce came in -- the bottom of the ad said-paid for by the u.s. chamber of commerce. they don't do that anymore. they were getting a bad reputation so they started these other groups. when you get a million dollars, as they did in my campaign, it actually influences the election

and it takes away the traditional support of meeting folks in the community and relying on recommendations and things of that nature. >> -- living with a judge as long as you dumped it's not easy. my wife knows ace well. >> thanks, tom, with the american bar association. given the situation now, the elections that are going on, the money going into the campaigns, what can judges and courts do to try to combat or overcome the public perception and the judicial perception, that money buys decisions? >> it's a good question. i think if i had the answer, i might be still a judge.

but, no. it's a tremendous problem that we have got to do something with can judges self-police? the problem is, you've always got somebody wanting to be a judge who is not going to play by the same rules. and bar associations should -- we have greater control by bar associations in judicial elections. public financing rather than just this open financing from the public at large. then you get back into the free speech issues of independent campaigns. there's no easy solution. >> i can just quickly say, i think sometimes it's easier to get people excited about a solution that's bigger than smaller. in certain areas we think about needing to get agreement on marginal change. if you look at most of the

polling -- this is true plate clay not just -- judicially -- if you look at citizens united, almost no one agrees. most people believe it's money in politics. it's always going to be corrupt and always broken. so in some ways we are arguing not against the consecutive position but against skepticism that we can make it better, and therefore, bolder ideas sometimes get a better response. whether that's just cities o'connor's position that says none of these positions should be elected. then you get into the question about the merit based approach. i think this is a moment, and i think the reports you'll get in the back, ask the questionses, too. we actually win more people by thinking big than necessarily by saying, you know, small. now, disclosure is an example. incredibly important, almost everybody agrees on it. even if we can't seem to get it through the heads of some of the people down the street. but it's still -- do we can't

even win what should be the easiest, everyone agree s on it position. so we need to fight that and sometimes that can take away from thinking more broadly about the questions of how broken our politics are, and i think finally, i have to go back to justice nelson's point, there's a lot of education and instead of burying one's head in the sand and saying this is people being too easy to manipulate and too much money involved, there are people outraged by it. they want something better than what they're seeing, and i think you could see in some cases acts of personal leadership and courage as these two men have shown that by having people who stand up to -- maybe they lose an election or lose their seat on the bench but over time the legal community and the american community more broadly see them as having been the heroes of the rule of law in the process, and that can have an effect as well.

>> it's important to note, too, it's said that all elections are local, and that's true. and it's imculp bent upon people in each state and city and county and judicial district to do this education process. those are the people who are going to have credibility in their own groups and communities and areas and those are the people on the ground, know the facts in that jurisdiction, and to get those facts out. >> my name is stacy, i'm a native of northern virginia and actually a victim of the pharmaceutical companies. a 30-day sample of abilfy y killed my fiancee in 30 days. the problem i fine, now that we have tort reform, they put a cap on your bane and suffering and you have to approve the pharmaceutical companies were

negligent order to sue you. mentioned something about following the money. i followed the money and where it leads to, it's a dispickable place and if their decisions are based on money given to them in a contribution and it affects people, whether it kills hundreds of thousands of people or wounds or injuries, will there be any criminal time for those legislators, for those judges? will they be disbarred or limits, term limits set on them? will there be any repercussions for their actions? >> yeah. it's a horrible situation when people are impacted as personally has you have by this generic tort reform label that you hear. again, i'm going to plug the movie "hot coffee" and the family was highlighted in there, and there were caps on damages in nebraska, and even though their son was born brain damaged

as a result of a negligent delivery by his doctor, he has to live his entire life on a fixed amount of money lower than the jury determined was a reasonable amount. we're seeing people impacted personally by these decisions. there's also a story in "hot coffee" a guy in texas who campaigned for tort reform, and he also suffered a medical negligence generals problem and tried to bring a suit, and someone said that, well, you know, texas has this law now and you're not able to sue your doctor because of this. and he said, no, no, no, we were campaigning against the frivolous lawsuits, not mine. and -- frivolous lawsuit is in the eye of the beholder and it's only through people like you telling your story that others realize that, hey, this might affect me and my family as well,

and that's what we've got to do. >> your story is heartbreaking because it's a reoccurring theme and i think judges are hearing all over the country, and again, i think it's important to get those stories like yours out before the public. i mean, nobody wants to have their loved one or their child or themselves -- they want to have their fair day in court. they want the damages for their pain and suffering, and just compensation for their injuries they've want these things. and i think if people like you -- you get your story out, that this is what's happening because of corporate money, and believe me, you've never heard anybody whine louder than when one of these big corporations

gets bounced out of court. my god, it's -- they just -- it's the end of the world. and i don't recall who do the study, some credible organization a few years ago. talk about frivolous lawsuits. most of the frivolous lawsuits are between corporations. >> exactly. >> lexus, the automobile, suing lexus, the legal research engine and things like that. >> i'll notice that the same people who are always talking about judicial activism seem to have no problem with it when it's overthrowing and goes to the jury -- >> one of the greatest growth injuries in the mississippi legal community right now is business on business lawsuits. they don't want to give up their rights to sue each other but i'll be darned if a person can actually sue a corporation. >> thank you. roy, retired from georgetown law center. terrific program. terrific report. indeed it's the best report i've

seen in a long time because the fullness of the information about the independent spending is really striking, and you all are to be really commended for it. i thought exactly the right question wassed and, what's the best way to do something about this, and i thought exactly the right answer came from justice nelson when he said, if it's one thing, it's disclosure mitchell question is this. what if any followup are you all -- that is the center -- going to do about this? twice in the report referred to strong disclosure. without a word about what that means. what it means in fact is that we have either -- no states as far as i know, or maybe one or two -- where the disclosure of the independent spending is effectively required. in the states that have any reference it to they use the magic words hurdle, which means, you joust don't get anything.

so what if any followup will the center be engaging in? >> well, thank you for the plug on the report, and for the softball question. [laughter] >> we -- perhaps this is going to be a 24/7 project. andrew who gave the introductory remarks and others will continue to do both the research and the advocacy. one of the unique things about this institution is we have both a think tank and an advocacy arm because we believe that actions without ideas can be as empty and problematicses a ideas never put into action so we try to be at the intersection. i think we need to think about disclosure in two stages. one is to do the research which should be easy in this day and age, who is writing the checks to whom. it's a little more complicated with independent expenditures and the abuse of the c4 loophole for those running paid

advertisements. the second component is the research of connecting those donations to the impact on people's lives at the kitchen table, which you heard about in stories today. one of the things that shifted in the political wing is what i would consider ideological giving on the right and left. you might have a billionaire on each side,to what you might call return on investment giving in the political process. post-citizen is united. which isn't based on the case. it's based on how the case changed norms in our society, whether it's okay to write a 10 mental check or pledge $400 million. we're looking at how these donors see a 30-40-50 percent return on investment, and a first year. and based on actual policy changes. on the judicial level, as we heard, we want to make sure we do the research not just on where the money is coming from and how much, which i think is shocking to people -- but what that means, and i think the

caper continue case, we keep coming back to the appeal of holiday pot coffee" because when people come to see they, they may rub an ad about gay marriage or letting a criminal out but this is about overturning a case where people died and got sick because of corporate negligence, and it was cheaper for them to buy a justice than to pay the liability. so, i think the disclosure is not just the giving but doing the research to show what this means means for people in their everyday lives. so that's thing we're committed to doing. i guess both these gentlemen will be continuing to fight for this, and i can give them a second to give their abc. >> i agree, and one thing -- i wasn't trying to be rude here. this is an amicus brief filed in the american tradition in the appeal mounted by former retired justices of the supreme court,

but the -- amy o'letty, the attorney who wrote the brief, detailed in one part of it the extreme difficulty that was faced when people were interested, tried to follow the money, and i think it was the michigan supreme court race that justices were thrown out of office, and it was like working in a cayman bank account. layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of protective corporations. and again, it just points up what i said. these people do not like transparency, and it's -- i think it's important but it's difficult. >> all goes back to disclosure and focusing light on the

problem. i'm out here constantly speaking on these issues. i was in seattle this past weekend, and just had a tremendous reception. folks had no idea what's happening in the judicial system, and the influence that corporations are attempting to have on the judicial system. so we've got to educate and disclose. those are what we have to do. as a result of what i've gone through, i was a justice on the mississippi supreme court, subject to a lot of negative advertising. i feel i'm compelled to speak out and help educate. the worst thing that happened to me is i'm in private practice and now making lawyer money instead of judge money, which is not a bad thing, and i'm one of the most well-known lawyers in the state of mississippi, which may not be a big thing here, but it -- my career is not diminished because of it.

and i certainly have been able to take a stand and a principled stand and people have respected that. i mentioned the gorily family who live with their medical malpractice problem they have for the rest of the life. "hot coffee" tells the story of jamie rejoin. she was brutally raped and abused in iraq when she want to work for halliburton in iraq but she signed an arbitration agreement and couldn't sue directly. al franken took her cause up on capital hill and she ultimately -- because through his efforts and thefts of others, was able to bring her case but she has to live with that constantly. so we have these problems, and disclosure and education are the solutions, and we have to do

that. >> well, we really appreciate everyone coming. when you think how deeply this is integrated into the american story, from to kill a mocking bird and 12 angry men and hot coffee and the appeal, when we think about how many shows on television are about something noble in law and order or csi, we think of how much we value this idea of an independent judiciary-these are two gentlemen who are fighting to make sure that remains a great part of the american tradition and we want to thank them deeply for joining us today and for their courage in their profession. [applause]