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    Who are the NERD fund donors Mr Snyder?

    Raise the curtain.

    Hypocrite, Thy Name is Hathaway


    By Nick, Section News
    Posted on Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 07:41:51 AM EST
    Tags: Hathaway, SCOMI, Supreme Court, hypocrisy, ethics, integrity (all tags)

    And Democrats wonder why fewer and fewer people trust them these days.  

    Last fall as Lefty Diane Hathaway traveled the state campaigning against then-incumbent Cliff Taylor for a seat on the Michigan Supreme Court she frequently employed one particularly pithy line of attack.  

    Taylor, she argued again and again, was a "walking conflict of interest" because the man's wife used to serve as Governor John Engler's chief legal counsel and he had the gall to rule on laws enacted during the Engler administration.

    That was her argument.

    Got the "logic?"  

    His spouse was a lawyer for the Engler administration thus, according to Hathaway, Taylor should have recused himself and declined to cast a vote on any issue tangentially connected to former Engler policy.

    Diane Hathway's husband is an auto insurance lawyer.  By her own logic... her own passionately delivered campaign season arguments, Hathaway has a clear conflict of interest in any case dealing with the insurance industry... perhaps more of a conflict of interest, even, than her one-time opponent since her husband, unlike Taylor's wife, stands to potentially make a lot of money depending on her handling of certain cases affecting the insurance industry.

    The Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association made that argument themselves earlier this year when they argued Hathaway should recuse herself from a case dealing with one particularly massive claim.  So this judge... this paragon of virtue... she practiced what she'd preached, right?

    Yeah, not so much.  According to the Detroit News:

    Hathaway denied having any conflict of interest, saying the association's stance "strains reasoned logic."

    The association's stance is HER stance.  A direct duplicate.  They could have sent her one of her own press releases.  

    And the three Republicans on the Court noticed.  Justices Maura Corrigan, Robert Young and Stephen Markman are reminding their newest colleague that hypocrisy is an unpleasant thing.  The News continues:

    "Justice Hathaway's refusal to live up to her own expressed standard of conduct is worthy of note in its own right: The people of this state deserve to know whether candidates promise one thing when running for office but deliver another when elected," wrote Young, who is up for re-election in 2010.

    Hathaway wrote she would not respond to her colleagues' "inappropriate and unnecessary" comments. "This court should discontinue devoting the state's limited resources to unproductive colloquy," she said.

    Interesting to note that the state may well have significantly fewer of those limited resources if she continues casting votes that could fatten her husband's pockets at the expense of the rest of our wallets but that's neither here nor there.  

    Still, there's a part of me that wants to give Hathaway some credit... sure, the woman is dishonest to the bone, and sure, it turns out voters can trust her about as far as they can log toss Mark Brewer, but she may have set a new land speed record for major campaign policy u-turns.  So she's got that going for her.

    < RightMichigan's De Leeuw speaks to Northern Michigan Republicans | Tuesday in the Sphere: July 28 >


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    Best bet... (none / 0) (#3)
    by Nick on Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 08:14:48 AM EST
    Run a good candidate and send her packing when she comes up for re-election in a few years.  

    We've already got a couple seats on the court to worry about this year!

    We are not amused... (none / 0) (#4)
    by rdww on Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 08:51:15 AM EST
    "Hathaway wrote she would not respond to her colleagues' "inappropriate and unnecessary" comments. "This court should discontinue devoting the state's limited resources to unproductive colloquy," she said."

    Don't you love how dismissive and condescending liberals can be when their motives are questioned?

    Recall of Judges (none / 0) (#7)
    by Kevin Rex Heine on Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 10:16:53 AM EST
    Sorry, Jason, that's a no-go.  Article 2, Section 8 of the Michigan Constitution is very clear on this point:

    Laws shall be enacted to provide for the recall of all elective officers, except judges of courts of record, upon petition of electors equal in number to 25 percent of the number of persons voting in the last preceding election for the office of governor in the electoral district of the officer sought to be recalled.  The sufficiency of any statement of reasons or grounds procedurally required shall be a political rather than a judicial question.

    While the state electorate can directly recall any other elected official, judges are immune from such a threat.  And as much as it annoys us, there is good reason for this.

    What we're going to have to do is pray that Justice Hathaway either does something to create sufficient grounds for impeachment (in which case the House of Representatives can introduce Articles of Impeachment consistent with Article 11, Section 7), or alternately we can pray that she does something that would expose her to removal under Article 6, Section 25:

    For reasonable cause, which is not sufficient ground for impeachment, the governor shall remove any judge on a concurrent resolution of two-thirds of the members elected to and serving in each house of the legislature.  The cause for removal shall be stated at length in the resolution.

    You may recall that I wrote, back on November 11th, 2008, that we need to publicly and loudly point the finger right at Diane Hathaway and her big-spending sugar-daddy (read: Jon Stryker) every time SCOMI screws up a decision.  Let's get busy taking a stand on this one.

    Bye bye to the free pass! (none / 0) (#9)
    by maidintheus on Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 10:11:19 PM EST
    Elections do have consequences but not in the way Sen Lindsey Graham suggests. He suggests that people voted for Obama so the people have pre-approved Sotomayor. That's not true. Due to the duplicity of rhetoric, as the health care take over examples, we don't vote for someone intending a free pass. The predominate consequence should be a realization that we the people are beholden to point out double talk and lawlessness, and aught to be able to expect our politicians to do the same. Still, the despicable Hathaway should never have been voted onto the SCOMI. As with Obama, we can say, "Told ya!"

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