The important question, regarding both of these judicial campaign money laundering PAC's, is who is giving the money to each, and in what amounts. Who the "members" are is not significant: the donor list, and what they gave, IS.

I don't know, is there a website like the PDC site that shows who gives to PAC's and in what amounts?

Roswell,

Yes, the donors and amounts are avialable on the PDC's web site.

In my original post yesterday, which I linked to today, I reported that 90% of the donors to Con Law PAC (there are barely any donors yet) overlap with donors to James Johnson's SC campaign in 2004. Johnson was the conservative candidate of choice who took out Mary Kay Becker.

Obviously, the important thing is tracking who donates to these PACs.

However: At this point in the season, there are very few donors to either group. The Con Law PAC, for example, has just over $900 on hand, and they've raised barely much more overall.

So, looking at who's in charge and supporting each group at this point is, in fact, helpful in getting an early read. Slade Gorton, for example, is the executive director for the Constitutional Law PAC. That tells you something. Moxie Media, a liberal consulting group, is working with FairPac. That tells you something. No?

Josh:

Thank you for reporting on this phenomenon. I completely agree that if there is “real-time� reporting of donations to these PAC’s everyone would be well-served by that kind of transparency. And if all it takes is a view of a PDC webpage (clearly marked on the PDC website), then this important information will be relatively convenient to monitor.

I also agree that accepting money from one of these PAC’s certainly acts as a crude marker: by taking money from one or the other, a judicial candidate signals to the voters how he or she expects they will rule on “close� issues in the cases where the donors to the PAC have interests.

The economic reality at work here is that appellate court seats in Washington can be bought by a small set of rich entities. There is a proven link between how much money a candidate for the Supreme Court spends and how many votes that candidate gets. The Johnson/Becker race you point to is the clear example recently.

These PAC’s are set up to serve only a narrow set of interests. The leaders of each of these two PAC’s are local political scenesters - one is a group of R’s, the other D’s. The fundamental problem with that is that our society is not comprised of people whose rights are coextensive with the narrow political interests of either R’s or D’s.

Let’s say a case that has been in the lower courts for three years will come before the Supreme Court for a decision in 15 months. A large union stands to lose huge amounts of money in that case. It will contribute heavily to the “D� PAC, to try to get judges who on the court to rule its way.

If the litigant opposing that union is not one that can generate large contributions to the “R� PAC (let’s say, local school districts), the judges will see no risk to their jobs by ruling in favor of the union. These two PAC’s are set up to launder money from rich donors to prospectively influence how justice is dispensed in that way.

Far worse are how these PAC’s can provide large (unlimited) contributions to particular incumbent judges who made rulings that in fact favored rich interests. Some entity is involved in a case that will cost it big, and the court will be deciding it right after the hearing (scheduled four months from present). The lobbyist for the wealthy litigant goes to the campaign managers of the three incumbent Supreme Court Justices who will be next up for election. The lobbyist says: “Hey, if case X happens to go the right way, PAC Y will deliver a tractor-trailer full of cash for your gal in September, just before the election.� What do you think that judge is going to do - turn down that kind of offer?

Contributions to PAC’s are not limited. Their rich backers will now have an even greater ability to take advantage of the little guy. A relatively few wealthy interests will stack the courts in advance, and they will have a greater ability to pay off judges after the fact who ruled in ways that furthered their interests.

This is a model for dispensing justice that is a far cry from the ideal – which is that even the less advantaged will be viewed with equal respect to the politically-backed in a court.

If these PACs are used to pay off judges after "good" rulings, it isn't going to make any difference if the PDC allows us to see where the money came from -- justice will have been aborted already, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

One solution: One Term Only for Supreme Court Justices. That would prevent the evil inherent in the current system - huge payoffs in the form of campaign contributions for reelection contests if the Justice holds for rich entities in a given case.