Boston.com / News / Nation / Washington / As Texas judge, Gonzales heard donors' cases

Boston.com / News / Nation / Washington / As Texas judge, Gonzales heard donors' cases: "Practice legal, but still faces criticism | By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | January 27, 2005

WASHINGTON -- When White House counsel Alberto Gonzales was a Texas Supreme Court justice running to stay in office in 2000, he took thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from companies that had business before him and he did not recuse himself from voting on their cases.

The practice is legal in Texas, and Gonzales was not the only judge to benefit from it. But his record in 2000 -- when he raised $539,000 for the Republican primary, outraising his opponent by a 1,047-to-1 ratio -- drew special criticism from an Austin-based group that tracks the influence of money on government.
...
Both cases involved whether insurance companies had to pay interest to plaintiffs whose final awards were delayed because the case went to court. The watchdog group said the decisions were ''a costly slap in the face to Texas consumers."

The group sarcastically called the donations ''prejudgment premiums" collected by Gonzales and another justice who voted in favor of the insurance industry. ...