You may recall that back on February 29, one of my posts began
You don’t have to be from Loose-iana to recognize the name Charles Foti. All you have to do is remember watching and reading about the aftermath of Katrina.
Foti was the state attorney general not only much in view in the battles of families to get their loved ones’ remains identified and released for burial by overwhelmed government coroners, he also prosecuted the owners of that nursing home south of New Orleans where the 30-odd old people drowned in their beds, and he investigated a doctor and two nurses in nine patient-deaths at NOLA’s ghastly post-Katrina
Charity HospitalMemorial Medical Center. Well, Foti couldn’t win conviction one in either of those cases but did recently manage to get himself re-elected Lawyer.Now his successor, new Louisiana Attorney General James "Buddy " Caldwell, invoking the state dawg* to an AP reporter, says, "There has been documented curious official behavior on the part of the previous AG’s office that has not gone unnoticed. It’s not going to take a Catahoula Cur to find the trail. "
Seems that Foti tried his own hand at some Jim Hood-like moves on his way out of office, teaming up with law firms who were his campaign donors to file a pair of multimillion-dollar antitrust suits, and arguably-illegally contracting with some of the same lawyer-donors to represent the state in a suit involving Louisiana’s "The Road Home " rebuilding program. …
You may also recall that a name high on the list of Foti’s contract-handing-out beneficiaries in that situation was Calvin C. Fayard, Jr., of the firm Fayard & Honeycutt, A.P.C.
Well, fast-forward to this item in yesterday’s New York Times (h/t Not At All Surprised), where Fayard’s name is high on another list:
Yet another 11th-hour appeal for a primary rerun to be held in Michigan. On the same day that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton added a Michigan stop to her schedule to push for that state to hold another Democratic contest, some of her biggest donors and most high-profile supporters promised to act as guarantors to deposit up to $12 million to pay for another go-around.New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell sent a letter to their counterpart in Michigan, Jennifer Granholm (also a Clinton supporter), listing 10 big donors who will make sure there are funds — up to $12 million — to conduct another primary. The donors are offering to guarantee money in part because the state has said it does not have the funds. Names on the list include Calvin C. Fayard Jr., John Eddie Williams, Fred Eychaner, John Catsimatidis, Bernard Schwartz, Brooke Garber Neidich, Roger Altman, Haim Saban, Peter Angeleos and Mr. Corzine.
Never mind that lawmakers and elections officials in Michigan have spent many hours in the last several weeks saying they don’t see how this can be accomplished in the next two months. As recently as today, some Democratic lawmakers emerged from their caucus with the same pessimism that they had yesterday and the day before. (Some officials in Michigan and Florida have been searching for ways to persuade the Democratic National Committee to seat their delegates at the convention after the D.N.C. barred them because these two states held early primaries.) …
I dunno, but somehow I just have to doubt that Mr. Fayard’s objective here is a fair election to ensure good government. History suggests that he’s all about ensuring something else entirely . . .
UPDATE: It didn’t work. Tuff, Cal.
There are signs even Dem polls by state are being monkeyed with in Clinton’s favor. That’s annoying : even if I don’t know Obama is a true alternative.
I find it amazing that Mississippi will have more of an impact as to who the Democratic nominee is than the states of Florida and Michigan combined.
How ’bout that, DN? Yezindeedy, our dear ol’ state leges took THE Cutesy Prize this year, so y’all enjoy your po-litical puissance for all it’s worth.
Seriously, can someone educate me as to why the DNC had such a problem with the primary dates of FL and Mich? The Republicans didn’t seem to have that much of a problem (aren’t Repub delegates from FL and Mich being seated?). Also, in general, who does a political party think it is to tell a State when its people can vote? Isn’t that the tail wagging the dog?
It’s no surprise to me that Fayard is offering to do this. In her Senatorial campaign in 2000, Fayard had a fund raising bash for Hillary at his home in Seaside, Florida. He rented, leased and borrowed practically every car and limousine in the area to shuttle guests that flew in from all over the country on rented and leased jets and planes.
He’s been a Clinton fan and ardent supporter for many years – having wined and dined at the White House with his friend (now wife) and fellow tobacco counsel Wendell Gauthier. He’s been to the Clinton house in New York for coffee, and Bill visits Fayard’s house on St. Charles on occasion.
If the feds are following the tobacco money trail in the wake of the Scruggs case, they’ll eventually see Hillary’s brother Hugh all mixed up in that and other profitable litigation with Fayard, Gauthier, Coale, and others.
Hmmm, NAAS. Any time you’d like to develop that thought further, I’ll be interested. You know my suspicions of “The Money Party,” for whom mere partisan labels are meaningless. Fayard sure sounds like a member in good standing. How/where does Hugh Rodham slip into this one?
Hugh Rodham was “part” of the Castano Group, for one thing. He participated in an official and an unofficial capacity. He had access to places and people that were not available to others.
The Tobacco Investigaton wan’t go any where north of here, Clinton and McCain both would have their names brought up to many times(You see it was McCains office Dickie and M. Moore set up in while Trent had to see who had to be paid off) to get it thru our US Congress. It was a Clinton Administration and Tobacco Wholesalers from China was coming thru the Whitehouse on to McCains office and within 3 weeks of the Settlement tobacco started coming out of Pakistan as a product of Dubia on to the shelves of Mississippi Tobacco stores. Now it was both parties who put it together. George Sr and Clinton both have gotten Billions out of this.
The DNC is trying to build a firewall– every state wants to be near the front of the primaries, and if there’s not a firewall, the primaries will creep farther and farther out until they reach the off year elections. Each state’s desire to hop over the others is a problem, and so the DNC tried to say “Halt!” by saying “Move in front of this line and you don’t get counted.” Florida and Michigan called the DNC’s bluff, and the DNC responded “We are serious” and asked the candidates not to participate. At that point, the candidates agreed but then Clinton pulled the cutesy maneuver of staying on the ballot and participating some.
I think Clinton’s argument that these delegates ought to count is grossly unreasonable and unfair. I also am very worried that she is willing to do serious and permanent damage to the Democratic Party in order to preserve her remaining chance at the Democratic nomination. I’m bothered enough about this and the way I think her campaign has seemed to condone the use of race as a campaign issue in recent weeks that it crossed my mind: Could this make me decline to vote in November if Clinton does succeed with these strategies? This is not the usual thinking for a yellow dog Democrat, but I did quickly put it out of my mind.
DN //”the Republicans didn’t seem to have a problem” The parties don’t have the same rules.
I agree w/ NMC. Clinton’s win- at- all- costs strategy is very damaging to the party. I’m really sick of her attitude that somehow she deserves a different set of rules when the existing ones suddenly don’t suit. I really wish she’d get out of the sandbox, cuz she’s not playing nicely with others.
NMC// How long did you entertain the idea? When the party leaves you when do leave the party? My Mother was a yellow dog and in her older years I did get her to vote Republican , but did I live to regret it, at family gathering she would say “Well I voted Republican one time in my life and he got run out of office.”
Without getting into the propriety of the unseemly race to the front, I’ll renew my most important question: why do the parties get to set the rules as to when a State gets to hold its election? Shouldn’t a sovereign division of our republic tell the parties when their candidates can come solicit peoples’ votes?
In any event, the Democrats took the unprecidented step of disenfranchising in excess of 28 million Americans because of their “rules”. No matter what party pulled this trick, if I were disenfranchised by my party, I’d never vote for them again.
Sailor 10 – I’m aware the parties don’t have the same rules, but that comment doesn’t explain how one party could see its way clear to disenfranchise so many people. Of all people, the poor people of Michigan deserve a voice in this primary cycle; their economy is in shambles.
magnolia: about as long as it took to formulate in my mind, and realize what it meant in terms of things like Supreme Court appointments.
DeltaNative: Political parties have a stake in their nomination processes. The local parties and states pick the dates, all right, but they have to deal with national rulemaking about the primaries too. I think the national party has a legitimate interest in assuring the integrity of the nomination process and that the process will produce a competitive candidate. Allowing the states to each individually game who-goes-first is very destructive of a coordinated national selection process.
Both parties set national rules for this process. I don’t see any problem with that. If the individual states refuse to play, I don’t see it being the national parties who make the decision to disenfranchise anyone.
There’s no other enforcement mechanism than “we won’t count your delegates.”
DN, I see your point, but (as I once told observer) I don’t vote party, I vote candidate. This year it happens there’s a candidate we desperately need at the helm of this country, and I’m champin’ at the bit to vote for him again — and have it actually count this time!
But if the Dems end up with HRC heading the ticket (a result I doubt very much will occur — but if it does) — I’ll face the worst dilemma of my 40 years as a voter. And I don’t know what the f*ck I’d do about it, so it better not be the choice I face.
We really, really need rotating regional primaries, don’t you think?
Delta Native : The Republicans didn’t seem to have that much of a problem (aren’t Repub delegates from FL and Mich being seated?).
The RNC penalized Michigan and Florida by reducing their delegates by half for jumping the gun.
The parties make use of state voting infrastructures, and the states cooperate in that endeavor, but a state has no say in how a party chooses its nominees.
For example, the now-moribund internet-based Unity08 Party proposed to nominate their presidential ticket via on-line balloting, completely bypassing the state-by-state primary/caucus system.
In the ongoing Katrina Litigation in the Eastern District of Louisiana, an attorney named Ashton O’Dwyer has been filing several motions seeking to recuse Judge Duval, and to disqualify Fayard and others from being on any Plaintiff Steering Committee in the Katrina Litigation because of their conflict by also representing the state of Louisiana.
Now, keep in mind that O’Dwyer has been sanctioned by the court for filing frivilous and vexatious pleadings. He’s also been admonished from sending email, etc. to other counsel because of his use of derogatory language. Some say O’Dwyer is a nut.
According to an affidavit he filed, he received a threatening phone call from Fayard saying “This is Calvin Fayard. There are certain things you don’t do the Fayard family, and interfering with their ability to make money is one of them.” According to the affidavit, Fayard went on to tell O’Dwyer that he can help him with his problems at the Eastern District.
Fayard’s attorneys filed a response and said he doesn’t remember saying what O’Dwyer says in his affidavit.
O’Dwyer filed his reply and says he TAPED the phone call, and has since been trying to take the depositions of Fayard and others.
“Nut” or not, O’Dwyer can write one hell of a brief.
Woo, NAAS. Keep us apprised, okay? If you’ve got a link for that O’Dwyer reply brief, I’d love a look at it.
I’ll get the briefs to you later this evening.
lotus, we need to scrap these gawd damned primaries all together. The more we turn our elections in this country into money fundraising campaigns the worse off we are. And on that note, I cannot believe a state would hold judicial elections that are not publicly financed, that just seems insane. I am not for judicial elections at all, but at least make sure that private individuals are not donating money to a judge’s campaign.
Hillary vs. McCain ??? I defect to Costa Rica and live like a king.
That’ll be great, NAAS. May be tomorrow or the next day before I get to them, though (got another project to finish first), so whenever you have them will be fine.
F’gawdsakes, TAKE ME WITH YOU, green 22!
NMC 14 – I understand your point. Somehow, it seems that having the parties in charge of setting the rules for elections is like having the fox in charge of the hen house, but oh well, that’s the way it is.
op99 17 – I did not know that. They shouldn’t have done that either.
I’ll quit beating this dead horse now. The tourney’s started!
Heh, love it when something blows up in the right faces.
Can anybody here say they know much about Obama? I have only barely been following along since the elections started since you get no real meat from the boob tube. But with the latest coming out about his minister and the way he has handled it, I thought I would try and educate myself a little more about him.
I found this article to be a fair and insightful look from someone who has been following him for awhile. Confirms most of my preconceptions.
Barack Obama and Me
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
http://www.houston-press.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/full
Can anybody here say they know much about Obama?
My daughter -in-law was at Harvard Law when he was.
I asked her about him when I first noticed his name back when he was running for the Dem nomination for Senate in Illinois.
She had lots good to say about him from Law School, and since then I have followed his career with some interest.
I like everything I’ve seen about him, from what his professors said about him to how his political opponents in the Illinois legislature characterized him.
LD
I didn’t really know much about Obama when he was a Senator here, but I think he will set the right tone for this country to move forward out of the Bush quagmire we find ourselves stuck in. I think Barack Obama will, based on his legislation in Illinois, back 4th Amendment rights, which have been eroded during the last 8 years. He strengthened those rights here in Illinois by forcing videotapped interrogations, after the police brutality scandals and Burge was exposed as a crooked, sadistic south side cop, coercing confessions through torture. It ended up costing the taxpayers gazillions of dollars in lawsuits, so there was some backing for it.
Obama inspires me and I like the idea of being our brother’s keeper , which I have taken to heart. He seems compassionate and kind, qualities sorely missing in too many of our past presidents. He is a leader I can follow. Other than that, I know nuting.
The DNC had to set a firm date for the earliest contests after Iowa and New Hampshire because states kept setting earlier and earlier dates. If Florida and Michigan got away with it, then some other state would have jumped in front of them and so on. The party sets the rules because this is the party’s nomination. The states can decide whether to have a primary or a caucus and when to have it within the parties’ windows, but the rules for apportioning delegates have to be approved by the DNC and RNC (and the Justice Department for Voting Rights Act states.)
You may have noticed that the Republicans are allowed to have winner take all primaries, but the Democrats always apportion delegates among all candidates who get at least 15% of the votes. The DNC requires that practice, but even if it didn’t, the VRA probably would not allow any state or state party to change it it. Generally the Democratic Party processes are held to stricter standards than the Republicans because it is assumed that the Democratic contests have minority candidates and voters who could be adversely affected by rules that are neutral on their face but might have a discriminatory effect. The same rules on the Republican side are not deemed to have a discriminatory effect because there are not enough minorities to affect.