Tobacco.org

• LETTER: KENDALL: Judicial Junkets Aided by Big Tobacco Funds 

In "'Junket' Science" (editorial page, July 8), James Q. Wilson professes to be "baffled" about why my organization would be critical of the expense-paid trips to resorts for federal judges run by the Law and Economic Center (LEC), a private organization affiliated with the George Mason University School of Law.

Recently released documents, produced in litigation by the tobacco industry, help clarify this point. These documents show: (1) that LEC solicited large donations from tobacco companies to fund the center's trips for federal judges; (2) that companies including Philip Morris (now Altria) and RJ Reynolds regularly contributed to LEC; (3) that Philip Morris considered LEC one of five "Key Allies" in the legal arena, along with three groups that litigate on the side of the company and a fifth organization that host junkets for state court judges; and (4) that paid experts for the tobacco industry regularly lecture to judges at LEC programs on critical issues to the tobacco industry such as "Science in the Courts" and the "Economics of Tort Law."

Such inconvenient facts help explain why LEC refuses to reveal its funding sources even to the judges who take their trips. There is nothing baffling about any of this: It is corporate judicial lobbying at its worst.

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