WASHINGTON -- Three senators on Friday proposed new limits on expense-paid trips for federal judges and a system to let the public know about potential courthouse conflicts.
Judges would be barred from taking free trips to seminars sponsored by special interests, although they could participate if their courts paid their ways, under the proposal by Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, all Democrats.
The plan also would require judges to maintain and make public "recusal lists" of companies in which they have a financial interest and potential conflict.
Judge travel has been criticized in recent years. The public-interest law firm Community Rights Counsel found in 2002 that 22 federal judges took trips underwritten by major corporations and failed to list the trips on financial disclosure forms.
http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-judge-trips,0,1032879.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines
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