Linking Judicial Junkets with Judicial Pay

For nearly five years, Community Rights Counsel has been fighting to ban "judicial junkets": lavish trips for federal judges, bankrolled by polluting corporations, which are designed to advance an anti-regulatory legal agenda. Our particular concern has been trips offered by a Montana-based outfit called Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), whose programs advance extreme views on subjects like the Takings Clause.

It has been a busy couple of months on this front. In April, Senator Patrick Leahy, the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced S. 787, the Fair and Independent Judiciary Act of 2003, a bill that would link a ban on judicial junkets to a judicial pay raise. This past week, Senator Leahy indicated his intention to seek to amend a separate judicial pay raise bill, introduced by Senator Orrin Hatch, to include his ban on junkets. He was supported in this effort by Senator Russ Feingold, who had introduced a similar bill in July 2000. Two dozen national organizations, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the American Association of University Women, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Defenders of Wildlife, wrote letters supporting this proposed amendment. (To read a group letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, supporting ethics amendments to S. 1023, click here; to read a group letter to the Committee supporting the ban on junkets, click here).

To head this amendment off, representatives of the Judicial Conference (the judiciary's policy-making body) met with Senator Leahy and assured him that they would revisit and revise their internal ethical guidance to address his concerns. Given the prior adamant opposition by the Judicial Conference to any reform in this area, this represents significant movement on their part. Still, both Senators Leahy and Feingold expressly left open the possibility of future efforts to move legislation on these issues, with Senator Feingold, in particular, stating that he would evaluate the progress the Judicial Conference had made by the time the pay raise bill was scheduled for floor action and decide then whether to pursue an amendment on the floor. Both Senators have given statements on the bill. To read the statement of Senator Feingold, click here; to read the statement of Senator Leahy's, click here.