Prometheus 6

LATER: They wimped out...which means Texas' rules mean nothing.

But the commission, citing rules it said had been devised by Justice Hecht’s own court, argued that the judge had improperly lent the prestige of his office to advance someone else’s “private interests,” illegally used his name to endorse “another candidate” for “public office,” and violated the State Constitution by conduct discrediting the judiciary.

Texas judges themselves had asked for the prohibition against political endorsements to fend off requests from fellow party candidates. Judges in Texas run for election on party lines.

Ruling Is Due for Justice Who Lobbied for Bush Pick
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

HOUSTON, Oct. 18 — A year after the Bush administration enlisted a Texas Supreme Court justice in its unsuccessful bid to put Harriet E. Miers on the United States Supreme Court, a special state court is to announce Friday whether the judge was guilty of “willful and persistent” violations of judicial ethics for his role in that effort.

The justice, Nathan L. Hecht, 57, the longest-serving member of the Texas high court and a friend of Ms. Miers for 30 years, testified before the State Commission on Judicial Conduct that he had given about 120 interviews to reporters in which he promoted her nomination.

Justice Hecht, a Republican who is running for re-election, also said he had reported back to the White House on questions he was asked about Ms. Miers, President Bush’s longtime counsel.

Justice Hecht was widely portrayed in news reports as Ms. Miers’s “spokesman.” Defending himself before commission members, he said he had been swept up in a “tsunami” of news coverage. “I felt I was drawn kicking and screaming into the process,” he testified.

But under questioning, he acknowledged, “Nobody forced me.”

Justice Hecht also told the commission that he had been advancing a public interest in Ms. Miers’s nomination, that she was not a candidate for elective office and that he was entitled to free speech.