Speaker Fails to Deliver for Presley and Hood

Y'all Politics has a great post on Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley and Attorney General Jim Hood working together to return to the Public Service Commission structure back to the days when commissioners could freely engage in corruption without the bureaucratic nightmare that exists today. Afterall, with Jim Hood there to protect us, there is no need for an independent Public Utilities Staff or a trustworthy PSC. And Presley thinks politics is like bacon, everything (including utility audits) is better with a good dose of it. And by the looks of him, Presley really loves politics. (Be sure to check out the video at the post to see Presley tagging along behind Hood behind Utilities Chairman Tyrone Ellis.) The most fascinating aspect of the whole thing is that they convinced the Speaker to rush their bill from committee to the floor and it failed on a procedural vote.

UPDATE: The measure passed the House the following day.

Mo money, mo money, mo money

Trial lawyers continue fundraising for Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens who won his seat last fall (after spending nearly $1 million on the campaign) and now sits on the Court. It is to pay off a loan Kitchens took out a week before the election. So, if you want to give money to a sitting Supreme Court Justice to pay off a loan, its legal, and you can do it at Hal and Mal's with the following hosts:

Bob Arentson (Baker Donelson), Jack Dunbar (Holcomb Dunbar), Christy Jones (Butler Snow), Charles Wright, Rick Nelson (Bryan Nelson), Sam Thomas (Underwood Thomas), and Merrida Coxwell (Coxwell & Associates).



Just remember, you can't give more than $5000. Because this is good government, but $5500 goes too far for judicial ethics. More than $5000, and someone might think you're trying to buy the court.

Oil-yez, oil-yez, Jim Kitchens presiding

As you might remember, during his campaign Jim Kitchens attacked Jim Smith for taking money from "Big-time oil and energy executives." We revealed his hypocrisy by noting: "Kitchens caught with oil on his hands."

Now it seems this very same money oiled the gears of his campaign. On October 28 - exactly a week before the election - Jim Kitchens took out a $250,000 loan for his campaign from Pike County National Bank. The security for the loan was the assignment of proceeds of an oil, gas, and minderal lease owned by Kitchen's wife. The lease is held by Questar Exploration and Production company.

Kitchens criticized Smith for connections to oil and energy, but then funded his own campaign with oil and energy resources. Hypocrisy. I guess he would say, its just oil in the family.

Furthermore, on Kitchen's latest campaign finance report, Carroll Hood of Hazelhurst is listed as giving Kitchens an $1800 In-Kind contribution by hosting a fish fry and reception. (It was actually listed as a disbursement. Maybe the campaign gave an in-kind contribution to him. Or maybe he gave an in-kind contribution but the campaign decided to pay for it. Of maybe he gave it as an in-kind contribution and the campaign disbursed money to someone else. I don't understand; maybe you do.)



Carroll Hood has served as chairman and vice-chairman of the Mississippi State Oil and Gas Board:

Hood is also on the board of directors of the Mississippi Economic Council and serves as president of Hood Petroleum Company Inc., Copiah Oil Company Inc. and HICO Inc. General Insurance Agency. In the past he has served as a commissioner of the Mississippi Employment Security Commission.

He currently has a nomination from Attorney General Jim Hood for another term on the Mississippi State Oil and Gas Board.

Wayne Brown's European Vacation

Wayne Brown's elocution in today's Sun Herald is pure literature. He writes a letter to the editor:

Dear Editor:

I am writing in reference to your article “Sun Herald investigation: “Officials travel the world on taxpayers’ dollars” that appeared in today’s paper (January 15, 2009). Each morning as Transportation Commissioner, I have a choice. I can:

1. Sit on the porch and have no expenses.

Or

2. Go out in the field and work for the people that elected me and have expenses.

Sincerely,
Wayne Brown Southern District Transportation Commissioner

Oooh, snap. What is this about? Well, apparently Brown thinks that MDOT stands for Mississippi Department of Tourism.

The Sun Herald reported yesterday that the top officials at MDOT have billed the taxpayers or special interest groups for trips to Budapest, Vienna, Brussels, Puerto Rico, Cancun, Key West, San Francisco, Walt Disney World (maybe they studied the monorail), Cape Cod, New York City and both country entertainment meccas Branson, Missouri and Opryland in Nashville.

The Brown boys (Butch and Wayne, no they're not cowboys) did most of "taxpayer-funded travel. Butch spent at least $80,000 and Wayne $69,000." Wayne is the elected commissioner from the southern part of the state. Butch is the appointed executive director, chosen by a majority vote of the three commissioners (Wayne Brown and Bill Minor voted for him, Dick Hall voted against him).

The state’s four highway officials have spent about $207,000 on travel over the last four years, according to the 1,700 pages of expense reports the Sun Herald recently requested.

Many trips for MDOT officials are funded by road-building industry groups, whose member businesses depend on lucrative state road construction contracts approved by MDOT leaders.

The appearance of such perks provided by the industry has prompted Alabama’s Department of Transportation to institute a policy that all ALDOT officials attending such conferences pay their own way.

MDOT leaders say their travel is all work-related and necessary to their jobs. MDOT is charged with overseeing state transportation, primarily the building and maintenance of state and federal roadways in Mississippi. They say they don’t see any ethical problem with construction companies or equipment and material suppliers paying for them to travel and dine.

Butch Brown and Wayne Brown said a European trip they took — at a cost of about $7,000 to taxpayers — with stops in Brussels, Budapest and Vienna, was to study how rivers and ports in those areas are used for moving cargo.

It only gets better. Reporter Michael Newsom continues taking us on MDOT's global road trip.

While Mississippi’s top four transportation officials travel often at taxpayer expense, they also are frequently taken away with their wives to popular tourist destinations and put up in luxury hotels with tabs picked up by groups of road builders who receive construction contracts from MDOT.

On the San Francisco trip in spring 2008, which was funded by the Mississippi Road Builders Association, Wayne Brown said he took an offered tour of the California Wine Country. Some of the commissioners and their wives took the optional trips to Alcatraz, tours of the city, and other trips, which were included on the agenda. The officials also stayed at the JW Marriott Hotel just off Union Square, a popular shopping and cultural area, on the Road Builders Association’s tab.

In addition to the San Francisco trip, Mississippi’s road-building industry has funded the officials’ travels to meetings at resorts in Scottsdale, Ariz.; Key West, Fla., and Orlando — where Cirque du Soleil tickets were offered — and other locations during the four-year period for which the Sun Herald requested MDOT’s travel records. In February, Wayne Brown was the lone commissioner to attend a meeting of the Mississippi Asphalt Pavement Association in Cancun, Mexico. The group paid for his lodgings at the Ritz-Carlton there, as well as his airfare.

It's not surprising these same special interests paying for the trips (when it isn't taxpayers that is) also fund their campaigns.

One of the largest donations was $10,000 from Lawrence Warren, head of Warren Paving, to Wayne Brown in January 2007. The Hattiesburg company received a $37.5 million contract for some of the Mississippi 67 four-lane project in November 2006.

Don't worry, the Browns have good excuses.

“When you look at my expenses or those at DOT and consider the responsibility we have, I am not embarrassed by them,” Wayne Brown said.

And, he said, it’s often hard work. He said a junket he and Butch took through Brussels, Belgium; Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria, at taxpayer expense was very tiring.

“We went to the different ports and places,” Wayne Brown said. “It worked the dog out of me. I thought we would have a little time for relaxation. There was very little of that. It was fascinating to see how Europe uses canals, railroads and highways.”

This has to be my favorite response.

One golf event benefiting those with mental retardation that Wayne Brown and other officials attended in West Point, Miss., left the state with a $270 bill for one night at the lodge at the Old Waverly golf course, which was reimbursed to Wayne Brown. Wayne Brown, who doesn’t golf, said he didn’t remember paying that much.

“Was that room $270 for me?” Wayne Brown said. “Wow. I don’t remember that, but anyway. Ouch.”

Ouch. That's like saying "my bad" and making it all better.

Great reporting from the Sun Herald and Michael Newsom. Here is a link to all the stories: MDOT Road Trip.

Hood Shocked by Entergy

Somewhere there is a lawyer working for Jim Hood who understands his case against Entergy. The problem is, Jim Hood does not.

For example, he failed to comprehend the FERC Form 1 he cited in his press release yesterday. That form is the basic reporting tool used by energy regulators, which Jim Hood is not. So we would forgive him, except that he fancies himself an energy regulator. Maybe he wants to grow up to be on the Mississippi Public Service Commission, which IS an energy regulator.

I digress. A recent press release from Hood expressed how much he was shocked by Entergy:

Entergy now claims that the amount of energy sold to Mississippi from the Evangeline contract comprised only one percent of the total Entergy Mississippi load in megawatt hours used between 2005 and 2008. But, according to documents filed by Entergy Mississippi with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the amount averaged closer to 8% in 2005 and 10 % for 2006 of total purchases by Entergy Mississippi from the Exchange.

Whaaa? You see those are different things. They both start with "E" so that might confuse him.

Lets see if we can explain this in terms Jim Hood can understand. Lets say hypothetically Joey Langston and Timothy Balducci gave $100,000 to the Democratic Attorney General Association (DAGA). Along with them, trial lawyers from all over the country, gave money to DAGA. Then DAGA gave $850,000 to Jim Hood. You can't say that $850,000 came from Langston and Balducci, because only a portion of that money came from them.

In the same way, Entergy purchased 8% to 10% of power from the Exchange. But only a portion of the power in the Exchange came from Evangeline. So Hood can't say all that power came from Evangeline.

Yes I know, the analogy breaks down real fast. First, while we know that DAGA did report it gave $850,000 to Hood, we don't know how much Langston and Balducci gave to DAGA, because unlike the power Exchange, it is not regulated by something like FERC to make sure everything is public. Second, Langston and Balducci just gave their money directly to Hood, in excess of $120,000 over the years. Third, Hood gave Langston and Balducci a contingency fee contract that was potentially worth $14 million and that doesn't really work in the analogy at all (it was just a gratuitous shot).

So I guess the point is, Jim Hood knows how money moves around, and he knows how to move the media around, but he doesn't know how to regulate power.

Mississippi's Dangerous Liason: Jim Hood

The American Tort Reform Association's report "Judicial Hellholes 2008 / 2009" includes an appendix, "Dangerous Liaisons: Some State Attorneys General Offer Contingency Fee Contracts to Politically Supportive Outside Counsel."

The report has choice words about our former Attorney General Mike Moore, but my favorite bits discuss Jim Hood and "his propensity for hiring future felons to perform legal work on behalf of Mississippi citizens".

As reiterated throughout, this report primarily focuses on judicial decision making and court practices that unfairly tip the scales of justice against civil defendants. But the actions of a handful of state attorneys general also contribute to growing concerns in the business community about the ability of defendants to receive fair trials. This happens when what are essentially private lawsuits are filed, often in a plaintiff-biased local court, with the backing of the state government and a strong incentive to obtain the highest monetary award possible. It’s a system of legal kickbacks known as “pay to play,” wherein lawyers who contribute to the campaigns of the state’s highest ranking attorney can then get a contract for a piece of the action and, in some cases, develop the action themselves and get a go-ahead to pursue it in the state’s name.

The practice began in May 1994 in the Chancery Court in Jackson, Mississippi, when then-Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore filed a revolutionary lawsuit that would change the relationship between the offices of attorneys general and the plaintiffs’ bar in virtually every state. The lawsuit was brought against the manufacturers and other entities comprising the tobacco industry and sought to recover monies allegedly spent by the state of Mississippi providing health care to residents injured by tobacco use.

But that’s not what was unique about this lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in Chancery Court. According to the state of Mississippi’s Web site, “Chancery Courts have jurisdiction over disputes in matters involving equity; domestic matters including adoptions, custody disputes and divorces; guardianships; sanity hearings; wills; and challenges to constitutionality of state laws. Land records are filed in Chancery Court.” Chancery courts are not typically the courts where lawsuits potentially worth several hundred million dollars are filed.

The State of Mississippi also pioneered an important new litigation model for legal representation with this lawsuit; Moore’s office hired outside counsel to represent the state, including his close friend and campaign contributor, Richard “Dickie” Scruggs (who has since been disbarred and is serving a federal prison sentence for an unrelated conspiracy to bribe a Mississippi judge). Scruggs and others agreed to take the case on a contingency fee basis. In the event that Mississippi settled or won its case, Scruggs would take a percentage. If the state got nothing, he would get nothing.

Today, the history of that litigation, parallel actions filed in other states, the ensuing Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) and additional state settlements is well known. Less well-known is the application of the model that it pioneered; a model that has created a corrupt and corrosive cronyism between some state attorneys general and outside counsel.

Hired on a contingency fee basis, outside counsel have won many billions of dollars in fees for their litigation work against a variety of industries. They also have been generous supporters of their chief clients’ reelection campaigns; thereby ensuring that the model provides financial benefits to both the elected official doing the hiring and the personal injury lawyers performing the work.

Today several attorneys general are involved in relationships with outside counsel in high-profile litigation that exemplifies the need for comprehensive reform. Here are four examples.

MISSISSIPPI

If former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore pioneered the model wherein personal injury lawyers are hired by the AG and, in turn, reward his or her campaign with cash, then credit goes to his successor Jim Hood for perfecting it.

In a five-year span Hood’s office retained 27 law firms to represent Mississippi in 20 separate lawsuits. Partners in the firms selected by Hood contributed $534,900 to his reelection campaigns over a two-cycle period. The list of Hood contributors included Moore’s old friend Richard “Dickie” Scruggs to the tune of $30,000, and fellow plaintiffs’ counsel Joey Langston, who, like his former associate Scruggs, has also recently pled guilty of conspiring to bribe a judge. Langston’s firm gave Hood $130,000. And that investment in Hood’s campaign seems to have paid off. In 2005 as part of the state’s $100 million settlement with MCI/WorldCom, Langston’s firm split $14 million in fees.

Considering his propensity for hiring future felons to perform legal work on behalf of Mississippi citizens, Jim Hood understandably remains a steadfast opponent of laws that would provide for competitive bidding and public scrutiny of the contracts into which his office enters.

Mississippi's Attorney General can hand pick his largest campaign contributors to receive secret, no-bid, multi-million dollar contracts. Where is the good government, Common Cause, media elite outrage? I suppose as it is a Democrat trial lawyer, no one cares.

Chief Justice Responds

Jimmie Gates writes in the Clarion Ledger that a priority for new Supreme Court Chief Justice William Waller Jr. will be "A full review of the Code of Judicial Conduct as it relates to the judicial election process."

I should - hope - so.