Williams, S judge

sierraclub

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200207/thinktank_printable.asp

<p>Influence is also exercised less directly. For example, the same

Lambe Foundation that gave to CSEF also donated $150,000 to the

Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), based

in Bozeman, Montana. FREE conducts seminars for federal judges–including

those at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where CSEF’s briefs were

filed. FREE is in ideological lockstep with organizations like CSEF:

While the foundation works the legal angle, FREE "educates" the judges

who will hear the cases. Indeed, the two judges, Douglas Ginsburg and

Stephen Williams, who held the Clean Air Act unconstitutional (a ruling

that was later overturned by the Supreme Court), based their decision

largely on the arguments advanced by CSEF. And both judges had enjoyed

the all-expenses-paid FREE seminars. (Ginsburg attended them each year

from 1993 to ’98; Williams went in 1993 and 1998.)

The Montana seminars feature horseback riding and hiking at FREE’s

dude ranch near Big Sky. In each of two years, 1999 and 2000, 6 percent

of the federal judiciary took in these junkets. A typical day includes

morning presentations, free time in the afternoon, an evening cocktail

hour, and then dinner with a speech by, say, Alfred DeCrane Jr., retired

head of Texaco, called "The Environment–A CEO’s Perspective."

FREE says its seminars focus on "economic implications of science,

risk, and environmental issues." Sounds innocent enough, until you

peruse some of the reading material. One seminar handout discusses the

"bureaucratic pathologies of . . . agencies like the EPA" and the

"irresponsible efforts [of] . . . environmentalists hostile toward

industrial civilization." FREE defends its seminars and its reliance on

quasi-corporate funding on the grounds that "federal judges are smart,

mature, sophisticated men and women . . . disposed by training to be

discerning, critical, and alert to shoddy arguments."

It appears that FREE seminars have been successful at winning over

these discerning judges. According to the Community Rights Counsel, a

public-interest law firm based in Washington, D.C., that has gathered

and analyzed an immense amount of data on FREE, in one case, "the judge

ruled in favor of a litigant that [was] funded by the same special

interests that helped fund his seminar." That judge, Stephen Williams

(the same one who ruled the Clean Air Act unconstitutional), reversed

himself in a highly publicized suit brought by the timber industry to

gut the Endangered Species Act. At issue in Sweet Home v. Babbitt was

the power of the government to protect endangered species by regulating

habitat. In a two-to-one opinion issued on July 23, 1993, Williams and

another judge upheld that power. Two weeks later, Williams attended his

first FREE seminar. When he returned to Washington, he granted a

rehearing to the timber industry, switched his vote, then wrote an

opinion (later overturned by the Supreme Court) striking down the

habitat regulations.

Central to the functioning of American democracy is a judicial system

that dispenses justice with an even hand. Yet CSEF, FREE, and other

like-minded groups seem intent on reshaping the judiciary in their own

image. Chief among these groups is the shadowy but powerful Federalist

Society. Another regular recipient of Koch largesse, the Federalist

Society is described by the Washington Monthly as "the best-organized,

best-funded, and most effective legal network operating in this

country." (See "Lay of the Land," March/April 2002.) Lawyers who belong

to or are active in the society include at least two Supreme Court

justices–Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas–as well as dozens of other

federal judges, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Solicitor General Ted

Olson, and Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham. The society boasts a

total membership of "20,000 legal professionals [and] active chapters in

60 cities." Yet, according to its 1998 federal tax return (which was

provided to me when researching this story and which mistakenly included

its list of donors), the Federalist Society’s income that year included

$4,934,325 in grants from the Kochs’ and other such foundations but

zero–yes, zero–in membership dues. </p>