October 25, 200520 yr Gosh...this one is fairly disturbing, yet somehow, totally unsurprising. Since we have so many folks from the Lonestar state hanging around here, i figured this was especially worth posting, since it looks like our newest Supreme Court nominee actually ripped them off and still to this day owes them money back. Knight Ridder news services Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers collected more than 10 times the market value for a small slice of family-owned land in a large Superfund pollution cleanup site in Dallas where the state wanted to build a highway off-ramp. The windfall came after a judge who received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Miers' law firm appointed a close professional associate of Miers and an outspoken property-rights activist to the three-person panel that determined how much the state should pay. The resulting six-figure payout to the Miers family in 2000 was despite the state’s objections to the "excessive” amount and to the process used to set the price. The panel recommended paying nearly $5 a square foot for land that was valued at less than 30 cents a square foot. Mediation efforts in 2003 reduced the award from $106,915 to $80,915, but Miers, who controls the family’s interest in the land, hasn’t reimbursed the state for the $26,000 difference, even after Bush appointed her to the Supreme Court. If you want full details, go read the article...suffice to say, the State made several offers on how much to pay her for the land...then in the late 90's, a Texas district judge who had received campaign contributions from Miers appointed a new judge to the panel looking at Miers's case, and that judge just happened to be a close personal friend of Miers. Suddenly, the amount the state was offering shot through the roof.
October 25, 200520 yr hmm interesting I wonder if some bitter Conservatives didnt point Knight Ridder in the general direction of this story. lol
October 25, 200520 yr QUOTE(Benchwarmerjim @ Oct 25, 2005 -> 01:55 AM) hmm interesting I wonder if some bitter Conservatives didnt point Knight Ridder in the general direction of this story. lol Likely. There's no way she will get nominated unless something earth-shattering happens.
October 25, 200520 yr Author QUOTE(kapkomet @ Oct 24, 2005 -> 07:22 PM) Likely. There's no way she will get nominated unless something earth-shattering happens. Um...she's already been nominated.
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