Legal News

If You?re Nathan Hecht, You Can Go Home Again (and Again)

By Peter Lattman

What’s going on with the Texas judiciary? First, we told you about the troubles of Samuel Kent, a federal judge in Houston. Then, we told you about arson charges leveled — and then dropped — against Supreme Court justice David Medina. (And let’s not forget about the foibles of not a Lone Star State judge, but a prosecutor there, Charles Rosenthal.)

Now, there’s news about Nathan Hecht, the Texas Supreme Court justice. Reports emerged yesterday that Hecht acknowledged using campaign funds to pay for dozens of flights to his hometown last year, calling the trips campaign-related — even though he’s not up for re-election until 2012.

Hecht (Yale, SMU Law) reported 42 payments to airlines for in-state trips last year, according to campaign finance records. ”A good bit” of them were for travel to his hometown of Carrollton, he said, where he still owns a home and attends church. ”I feel like it advances my campaign to go up there, and I almost always work when I’m there,” said Hecht to the AP.

Using political contributions for personal use is against state law, and a Texas ethics commission has interpreted the law to ban judges from using campaign donations to pay the costs of commuting between a judge’s home city and the city where the court is.

If Hecht’s name rings a bell, it’s because he was accused last year of abusing his judgeship by serving as one of Harriet Miers’s chief boosters for a spot on the Supremes. Miers and Hecht are close friends and once dated. Miers, of course, has left the government and returned to Locke Lord, where she dishes out practical wisdom and trusted advice.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 24, 2008 (boomark / email).