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" It sure set off alarm bells, the news that federal judge Martin Feldman \u2014 who overturned the Obama administration&amp;#039;s six-month moratorium on offshore drilling Tuesday \u2014 holds oil industry stock. My gut instinct, though, is that it&amp;#039;ll turn out to be a non-story. Disinterested experts note that Feldman&amp;#039;s ruling focused on the unusually broad language of the moratorium: he is not so much supporting Big Oil&amp;#039;s arguments as criticizing the feds for overstepping their bounds.   But there is a genuine, and much larger, court scandal on the horizon. As the lawsuits against BP and other involved companies mount, many of them are going to be brought in state courts. And judges in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama \u2014 the three states so far most impacted by the spill \u2014 are elected. Which means they have to campaign. Which means they have to take campaign donations. And you&amp;#039;ll never guess who&amp;#039;s donating. In the interest of speed, I&amp;#039;ve taken a look at just the Louisiana Supreme Court. Two of its seven justices \u2014 Bernette Johnson and Jeannette Knoll \u2014 list no donations since 2000. Two more, Jeffrey Victory and Marcus Clark, show extremely limited campaign donations since 2000, largely from private citizens. (Clark also received $500 from Dow Chemical.)  Of the remaining three, all received large donations from numerous Louisiana lawyers and law firms. Chief Justice Catherine Kimball also got money from Chevron, Merlin Oil &amp;amp;amp; Gas, Petroquest Energy, and Apollo Energy. Associate Justice Greg Guidry got money from Chevron and Dor\u00E9 Energy Corporation. Associate Justice John Weimer got money from Halliburton, Citgo, Chevron Phillips, ChevronTexaco, the Texaco Political Involvement Committee, Energy Drilling Company, Gaubert Oil Company, Waguespack Oil Company, Coastal Energy Services and Supply, Gas Masters of America, Petroleum Laboratories Inc., Kerr-McGee (an offshore drilling firm, sold to Anadarko Petroleum in 2006), Performance Energy Services (a builder of offshore drilling rigs) and the Riceland Petroleum Company. Indirectly related firms, such as Bollinger and Edison Chouest Offshore, major shipbuilders serving (among others) the Gulf oil industry, also donated to one or more justices. (Fact-checkers and muckrakers can search the judges&amp;#039; campaign finance records here. Unfortunately, Louisiana&amp;#039;s system does not generate unique URLs for each search, so I cannot link to the records individually.)  Again: This is just the Supreme Court of one state. There are also hundreds of lower court judges in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. A complete search will reveal thousands of similar donations to them. In the coming years, it is a certainty that dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of cases against BP and others involved in the spill will be filed in the state courts of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is worth asking \u2014 now, and insistently \u2014 whether these courts will be able to provide anything approaching justice. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a7733/judge-martin-feldman-062310/>