The Center for Public Integrity

Conservative foundations, multinational oil companies and a prescription drug maker were the most frequent sponsors of more than 100 expenses-paid educational seminars attended by federal judges over a 4 1/2-year period, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation months in the making.

The Center identified instances where judges who attended seminars underwritten by certain firms and trade groups later issued rulings in the funders’ favor.

And the Koch Foundation and The Searle Freedom Trust, both major supporters of conservative causes, were sponsors for most of the conferences organized at George Mason University and Northwestern University.

Both schools conducted more judicial seminars than any other university or organization between mid-2008 and 2012, the Center's analysis found. 

The project's main investigation, written by Center for Public Integrity reporters Chris Young, Reity O'Brien and Andrea Fuller, is found here.

Other components include:

Publicly filed reports of privately funded trips and seminars made by federal judges are often difficult to find, incomplete or missing altogether, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation.

In 2007, the organization that oversees the conduct of federal judges implemented an ethics policy requiring public disclosure of details about privately funded judicial education conferences.

Noting that judges may be “influenced inappropriately” by those who conduct the events, a panel of the Judicial Conference of the United States said the new disclosure requirements “should strengthen public and congressional confidence in federal judicial ethics.”

The Center collected disclosure information from 2008 through 2012. Many federal court websites are poorly designed and hard to navigate, making it difficult to find links to judges’ seminar-disclosure reports.

In some cases, links to reports were either broken or nonexistent. A handful of courts, including the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, linked to a different set of disclosures. In Delaware’s case, it was the U.S. District Court in Northern Texas.

The Center’s analysis also showed apparent lapses in reporting by hosts and judges.

For example, in August 2011, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE) hosted a five-day judicial conference at a ranch in Big Sky, Mont., entitled “Terrorism, Climate & Central Planning: Challenges to Liberty & the Rule of Law.”

FREE’s report indicated there was just one lecture: “Taking the Long View of Progress,” delivered by Judge Daniel Boggs of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. But a conference agenda posted on FREE’s website shows there were in fact 11 lectures at the event.

The list of corporate sponsors of expense-paid judicial education seminars hosted by George Mason University’s Law & Economics Center in years past includes the names of such blue-chip companies as AT&T Inc., the Coca-Cola Co., Exxon Mobil Corp., Pfizer, Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

But one name sticks out for its relative obscurity: Petromina LLC. While it turns out the company is little-known, its top manager is anything but.

Documents show that Petromina LLC is headed by Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, the former president of Bolivia, who fled to the United States nearly a decade ago amid major protests and accusations of human rights violations in his own country.

For years, Bolivia’s current government has unsuccessfully sought to extradite Sánchez de Lozada, also known by the nickname “Goni.”

Why a company headed by the former president of Bolivia would be interested in sponsoring expense-paid conferences for federal judges is unclear. Sánchez de Lozada, through attorney Ana Reyes of the Washington, D.C., firm Williams & Connolly, declined a request for an interview.

Sara Magner, the company's general counsel, told the Center for Public Integrity only that Petromina LLC decided to donate to the George Mason University think tank "as part of its charitable giving" after being "approached by an employee of George Mason to make the contributions."

Petromina LLC, which Magner described as a "family advisory firm," is headquartered in a non-descript office building barely five blocks from the White House. Sánchez de Lozada is listed as “manager” and the “sole member” of the company, which was established in Delaware in 2005, according to records.

The company’s purpose is to provide “management and administrative services” and to offer “stewardship services to other foreign affiliates,” according to paperwork filed with the D.C. city government.

Conservative foundations, multinational oil companies and a prescription drug maker were the most frequent sponsors of more than 100 expense-paid educational seminars attended by federal judges over a 4 1/2-year period, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation.

Among the seminar titles were “The Moral Foundations of Capitalism,” “Corporations and the Limits of Criminal Law” and “Terrorism, Climate & Central Planning: Challenges to Liberty & the Rule of Law.”

Leading the list of sponsors of the 109 seminars identified by the Center were the conservative Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, The Searle Freedom Trust, also a supporter of conservative causes, ExxonMobil Corp., Shell Oil Co., pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and State Farm Insurance Cos. Each were sponsors of 54 seminars.

Other top sponsors included the conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (51), Dow Chemical Co. (47), AT&T Inc. (45) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (46), according to the Center’s analysis.

Sponsors pick up the cost of judges’ expenses, which often include air fare, hotel stays and meals. The seminars in the Center’s investigation took place from July 2008 through 2012.

The Center identified 185 federal district and appeals court judges who reported attending one or more of the seminars over the period, according to disclosure forms, or about 11 percent of the more than 1,700 federal judges in the United States.

Two schools — George Mason University, located in Virginia just outside Washington, D.C., and Northwestern University based in Evanston, Ill., — hosted more than two-thirds of the seminars.

The Democratic Party hasn't officially settled on a nominee to fill the seat of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who resigned earlier this year to become the country's new secretary of state. But it's already hitting up donors in preparation for the special election this summer.

"Our efforts to retain and expand our control of the Senate must start now," wrote Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., in a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundrasing appeal to previous donors that the Center for Public Integrity obtained.

In the letter, dated March 4, Baldwin said the DSCC was soliciting cash "to get an early start in the upcoming races," including the Massachusetts special election, in which Democratic Reps. Ed Markey and Steve Lynch are vying for the chance to run against a yet-undetermined GOP opponent.

The DSCC has endorsed Markey over Lynch in the April 30 Democratic primary. The general election is June 25.

Last month, the two Democrats signed a pledge encouraging third-party groups, such as the DSCC, to abstain from making independent expenditures during the Democratic primary. If outside groups spend money on advertisements that violate the pledge, the candidates agreed to dip into their own campaign coffers and donate to charity an amount equal to half the cost of those ads.

The Family Research Council, which filed briefs opposing same-sex marriage ahead of this week's high-profile U.S. Supreme Court cases, has become an increasingly popular source of campaign cash for conservative politicians.

During the 2012 election cycle, the Family Research Council's political action committee donated a combined $208,000 to 80 federal candidates, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

That's a roughly a two-and-a-half-fold increase from the group's giving during the 2010 election cycle, when it contributed $84,500 to a combined 33 federal candidates.

During 2008, when the PAC was created, it doled out a combined $13,000 to just eight candidates.

None of the candidates supported by the Family Research Council's PAC have been Democrats. 

On its website, the group says the money it collects will be "strategically used to support pro-family candidates and pro-family issues in elections and ballot initiatives around the country."

At the end of February, the PAC had about $56,000 in the bank, according to its most recent FEC filings. It has not yet made any political donations this year.

The Family Research Council is headed by former Louisiana state Rep. Tony Perkins. The PAC's president is Connie Mackey, a former lobbyist for the organization.

Party like a rockstar? Try lobby like a rockstar.

Rockstar, Inc., maker of the eponymous beverage, has hired a well-connected team of Podesta Group lobbyists — nine in all — to press federal lawmakers on "legislation and oversight regarding energy drinks," a new filing with the U.S. Senate indicates.

This is the first foray into federal lobbying for the Las Vegas-based company, which offers a caffeine- and additive-filled product line with brands such as "Rockstar Juiced" and "Rockstar Punched."

And it comes as the Food and Drug Administration is investigating the safety of energy drinks. Lawmakers, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have also expressed concern about the beverages.

As the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments this week in two cases concerning gay rights, advocacy powerhouse Human Rights Campaign has been rallying its base by word — and by dollar.

"This is our moment," Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin wrote Sunday in an email to supporters. "Tuesday is the culmination of years of work. The millions like you who have pitched in, spoken out and recruited friends to our cause have helped bring us to this point, but we're not at the end of this journey yet."

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Human Rights Campaign spent $1.37 million on federal lobbying last year — more than any other group focused on LGBT issues.

The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, which is the largest advocacy group focused on the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, also operates a political action committee.

In February, its PAC doled out a combined $7,000 to five members of Congress, according to records filed last week with the Federal Election Commission.

Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska; Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill.; Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif.; and Dirigo PAC, the leadership PAC of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, each received $1,000, records indicate.