Harriet ! you got some 'Xplaining to do!: Miers' shady deal and nomination killer?

Poor Poor Harriet, she's been W's faithful "work wife for all these years, and even sent him all those Cute little Puppy cards to show him she thought he was the "best governor ever". And all she ever wanted in return was a lifetime appointment to the highest and most prestigious judicial body in the land. Really was that so much to ask?

Well apparently, some ungrateful Wingnuts think so. ( Who do they think shut that Guy up about the president's TANG admission anyway?) For some reason they are pissed off that W didn't nominate Attila the Hun (don't try telling them he's dead ) or at the very least Judge Roy Moore

Fortunately for them and sadly for her , Sunday's Philly Inquirer digs up the scandal that will allow W to try again:

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers collected more than 10 times the market value for a small slice of family-owned land in a large Superfund pollution cleanup site in Dallas where the state wanted to build a highway off-ramp.

and that's just the beginning of this deliciously ironic story:
You see, in proof that there is poetic (or at least ironic) justice in this world; it seems that Harriet got this sweetheart deal thanks to a healthy dose of cronyism courtesy of the Texas bench:

The payment came after a judge, who received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Miers' law firm, appointed a professional associate of Miers and an outspoken property-rights activist to the three-member panel that determined how much the state should pay.

Now mind, you thanks to Texas' uniquely politcal system of selecting judges these sorts of conflicts of interest are so common that it's nearly impossible to refer to the Texas "justice" system without reverting to air quotes. However, even Texas-style judical corruption is rarely this blatant:

The resulting six-figure payout to the Miers family in 2000 came despite the state's objections to the "excessive" amount and to the process used to set the price. The panel recommended paying nearly $5 a square foot for land that was valued at less than 30 cents a square foot.

for those of you playing along at home, that's a mark-up of nearly 1500%. And 50x the state's initial offer for the land:

The condemnation case in Dallas began in April 1999, after the Miers family rejected the state's initial offer of $5,900 for a half-acre of their land and a subsequent offer of $27,000.

The land, at North Westmoreland Road and Interstate 30 in west Dallas, was one of several parcels that Miers' father purchased in the area after World War II. The market value for the entire 18.74-acre lot, according to state tax records, was $244,890. It is vacant and brush-covered. ....

Commercial real estate experts in the area say the nearly $107,000 awarded in court for the land was unusually high.

"Industrial land in that area is generally sold around $1 or $2 per square foot," said George Roddy, owner of Roddy Informational Services, which has researched commercial real estate in Texas for 35 years. What Miers was paid was closer to $5 per square foot.....

which is pretty good Considering the land was also contaminated with toxic chemicals:

The market value of the Mierses' land may have been depressed because it is located within a federal Superfund site that was contaminated by an old lead smelter. The smelter crushed and recycled batteries - and spewed toxic lead dust on surrounding properties - for 50 years until it closed in 1984.

The Mierses' property is about a mile away from the site of the smelter, which has since been torn down.

So the state was looking for a small slice of completely empty unusable, land and even increased their initial offer by 1000% to try to get the land by consent. However, then City Councilwoman Harriet decided to take her chances in Court instead. But the record shows it really wasn't much of risk after all:

First she'd paid good money for the Judge:

Campaign finance reports in Dallas show that Miers' law firm, Locke Purnell Rain & Harrell, had contributed at least $5,000 to Evans' political campaigns between 1993 and 2001. That included a $3,000 contribution in 1998, the year before the Miers condemnation case landed in Evans' court.

And she was pretty tight with the "independent commissioner" he appointed:

Texas law says that in condemnation cases, a judge must appoint three "disinterested" special commissioners to hear evidence, determine the "injury or benefit" of the state's action to the property owner, and rule on what, if anything, the state should pay for the property.

But there was an accumulation of shared interests - dating back years - among several of the parties that assembled in state District Judge David Evans' courtroom to settle the Miers case.

One of the three commissioners whom Evans appointed to hear the case was Peggy Lundy, a professional associate and political ally of Miers.

In an interview Thursday, Lundy said she and Miers worked closely together on a commission set up to restructure Dallas' municipal court system.

"That's where I got to see her up close and see how terrific she is," Lundy said. {the Best Lawyer ever?-ed.}...

"I had a nice, professional relationship with her," Lundy said.

Lundy added that she recruited Evans to run for judge and served as the treasurer of his first campaign and as an adviser to several others.

Evans also appointed one of his campaign contributors, Cathie Adams, to work on Miers' case. At the time, she was president of the Dallas Eagle Forum, a politically active conservative organization that touts its "pro-family" agenda.

Adams said in an interview Thursday that she believed Evans picked her as a commissioner because of her strong views against the government's "taking of land."

"I don't like it," she said of condemnation, or eminent domain, proceedings. Such cases should be "rare," Adams added, and only if the government is willing to pay a stiff price

Now to be fair that award was later reduced somewhat, But it seems that Just like her Texas and DC bar dues Harriet clean forgot to send the money back:

Mediation in 2003 reduced the award from $106,915 to $80,915, but Miers, who controls the family's interest in the land, has not reimbursed the state for the $26,000 difference, even after Bush nominated her for the Supreme Court.

...

Scott Young, the Dallas lawyer who represented the Miers family in the case, never signed the settlement papers, and Miers never repaid the difference.

"I don't know why... it has been as long as it has," Young said. And, he said, "the state hasn't been pressing us" for the money.

And that of course seems totally normal. Why I know when I owe the government money, they are totally lackadaisical about getting to from me as well:

"Your taxes? Do you owe us money?, Oh I guess you do! . Gee we'd totally spaced on that, thanks though"

So why should we care about a decades old land deal ?(haven't I heard that phrase somewhere before?) well see:

Supreme Court justices, unlike other government officials, define potential conflicts of interest for themselves and are responsible for policing their own ethics.

"If Harriet Miers is confirmed, she'll be entrusted to make a large number of unreviewable decisions about which cases to sit on," said Douglas T. Kendall, executive director of Community Rights Counsel, a public-interest law firm in Washington. Kendall said the fact that Miers raised no red flags in the face of "clearly disturbing facts" in the land-condemnation case doesn't say much for her ethical acumen.

So there we have it. The silver bullet that kills the Miers Nomination with a minimal loss of face for the administration. A few horrified looks, a few declarations of how "shocked" they were to discover that Harriet "failed to use better judgment" , and out the door she goes. The only question is, who fires it first: the Left or the Right?