Nader says illicit Pa. politics tainted his '04 election effortSeeking to void a judgment to pay $81,000 in court costs of a group that challenged his 2004 presidential nominating petitions, Ralph Nader contended yesterday that the group's law firm should have disclosed its ties to three Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices who ruled in its favor.
Nader, the longtime consumer advocate who was an independent presidential candidate in 2004, lost his court fight in the state Supreme Court to get a spot on Pennsylvania's ballot - and he lost again when the high court ruled in 2006 that he must pay about $81,000 for court transcripts and handwriting experts hired by the ad hoc group that contested his petitions. Now, Nader has launched an attack on the Reed Smith law firm, contending that, while the case was pending, a lawyer at Reed Smith represented Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy in a misconduct complaint filed by a taxpayer activist about Cappy's effort to persuade lawmakers to pass a pay raise for judges. The complaint was later dismissed.
Nader further contended that the law firm also should have disclosed it had contributed $5,000 to the 2005 retention campaign of then-Justice Sandra Schultz Newman, and that Justice Ronald Castille had once worked for the firm and had an "open-ended offer of employment" there.
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Daniel I. Booker, an attorney at Reed Smith, said the law firm's representation of the chief justice had been widely reported and was well-known - and the law firm's political contributions were publicly filed. And Justice Castille did work for the firm, he said, "but all that was before he was ever on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania."
Castille said through a court spokesman yesterday that he "severed all ties with Reed Smith as of 1993. There is absolutely no 'open-ended offer of employment.' "
Cappy declined to comment, saying it would be inappropriate to do so while the matter is in litigation in another court. Newman, a former justice who has returned to the practice of the law, also declined to comment.
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"The appearance of impropriety arising from these relationships is manifest, and clearly raises reasonable questions as to the impartiality of the tribunal," Nader and his attorneys said in the court papers.
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Before the case ended up in the state Supreme Court, Nader lost his battle in Commonwealth Court, which ruled that only 18,818 of the 51,273 voter signatures Nader submitted were valid.
A judge called the petition "the most deceitful and fraudulent exercise ever perpetrated on this court."(LM: emphasis is mine.)(Link:
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20071109_Nader_says_illicit_Pa__politics_tainted_his_04_election_effort.html)
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