The federal judiciary is "slow-walking" enforcement of new rules on subsidized judicial trips and seminars, according to a report announced this morning by Community Rights Counsel, the advocacy group that has spotlighted so-called "judicial junkets" in recent years. The Judicial Conference last September announced a new policy on privately funded trips that took effect Jan. 1 to increase transparency, including a requirement that host organizations reveal their funding sources, and that judges report their trips promptly. So far, no reports on trips or host organizations have been posted, says CRC executive director Doug Kendall -- and January and February are usually prime time for travel.
CRC also takes aim at Ninth Circuit judge Andrew Kleinfeld for continuing to take trips sponsored by George Mason University's Law & Economics Center -- on whose board he also sits -- described by CRC as an "ExxonMobil-funded junketing organization." Kleinfeld has ruled in ExxonMobil's favor on punitive damages in the Exxon Valdez case. "We are not questioning Judge Kleinfeld's integrity," Kendall said, but he urged Kleinfeld to resign from the center's advisory board.
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