On 11/1/10, Rick Hasen <hasenr@gmail.com> wrote:
Hatchet Job on Jim Bopp
I am no fan of Jim Bopp. We have been on opposite sides of campaign finance
and judicial conduct regulation issues ... [snip]
I have a hard time seeing anything remotely scandalous or improper in the
[Common Cause] report [on Jim Bopp, Jr.]. [snip] What was the point of releasing > this report?
Lawyers taking on unpopular causes or popular causes intensely opposed
by others are always the subject of what can be termed "hatchet jobs."
The usual line of separation between lawyer and client is blurred or
erased with Jim Bopp's personal efforts over long periods of time....
If there are personal attacks outside the realm of policy, law,
constitution and ideas of public import, I denounce those.
But quoting Jim's views on the issues and attacking those - the
parts of the report I've read - are certainly fair given the watershed
changes in campaign finance Jim has engineered, which altogether are
arguably more far-reaching than anything President Obama has done so
far, especially since they are enshrined into the constitution itself
via interpretation in Citizens United.
Let's take one quote from the New York Times that the Common Cause
report does select in "The Quotable Bopp," (the rest of which is
linked to below), and substitute some other popular subjects of law.
This will mimic in a very rough way the 80% of liberals and
conservatives that liked campaign finance law the way it was before
Citizens United:
“We had a 10-year plan to take all this down. If we do it right, I
think we can pretty well dismantle the entire regulatory regime that
is called [THE CRIMINAL] law. […] We have been awfully successful and
we are not done yet.”
“We had a 10-year plan to take all this down. If we do it right, I
think we can pretty well dismantle the entire regulatory regime that
is called [ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION] law. […] We have been awfully
successful and we are not done yet.”
“We had a 10-year plan to take all this down. If we do it right, I
think we can pretty well dismantle the entire regulatory regime that
is called [IMMIGRATION PROTECTION] law. […] We have been awfully
successful and we are not done yet.”
Original quote and more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/us/politics/25bopp.html
The only question is, in the actual NYT quote where Jim Bopp uses
"campaign finance" in place of the CAPS above, is "campaign finance"
of so little moment that it would not inspire both justified and
unjustified passions in the country?
It's not every day that a group that argues for secrecy or
non-transparent political contributions forthrightly asserts what
could be characterized as a 10 year conspiracy of "we" to dismantle an
entire field of law as we know it, and to do so by non-democratic
(counter-majoritian/constitutional) means. Granted it lacks the
element of illegality totally so far as I can see, but "conspiracy
theories" are highly disfavored in the media whether they allege
illegality or not, and here we have an admission of a ten year plan to
dismantle an entire regulatory structure.
In my view, Rick Hasen is perfectly OK in disagreeing with the
content, tone or perceived fairness of the report, but Jim Bopp is way
more than relevant enough to deserve a report or research. I imagine
some law students will do papers on him, too. After alll, when a
single vote on a Supreme Court overrules something 80% of liberals and
conservatives value, and the ruling is in favor of wide-open free
speech, I can see no reason why Jim Bopp would not be on the receiving
end of an entire range of opinion from heroic approval to democracy's
nemesis. This is kind of like what President Obama has to put up
with, who has yet to institute or inspire a change of the very
constitution of our society like Jim Bopp has.
The Common Cause Report is entirely aside from the rules this list
attempts to foster in favor of a higher standard of civility. Great
and loud unfairness, unfortunately, is to be expected from the
ever-more relaxed standards of what passes as elective political
deliberation in our country. Common Cause and other groups have all
the reason in the world to issue a report on Jim, reports both glowing
and critical. It's fair to say that I wish they'd written it
differently, too. But te "point" in releasing the report is to add
to the huge amount of opinion Jim's "litigious" habits have spawned,
and that ranges from those who see an incredible First Amendment
vindication to those that see it as the very death of Democracy
itself. Common Cause is somewhere in between.