Hightower Lowdown

The Congress and the White House are pretty much bought and paid for, but what about that other branch of government that's supposed to be non- political and unbiased: the judiciary?

Who are the people on your state supreme coum for example? Who put them there, who do they-really serve, could they have been paid for, too?

In Texas, as in several other states, supreme court members are elected, and the big contributors to their campaigns are corpo- rations that happen to have cases pending before the court.

The watchdog group Texans for Public Justice finds that the chief justice of the court Tom Philips, spent $1.3 million to win his seat beating a guy who had only $20,000 to spend. Philips, a Republican, got two-thirds of his cash from corporate interests. Four other Republicans were elected to the court in '98; all four were given more than a million bucks, with two-thirds to 80% of that rate interests. Big surprise: They all vote consistently for the corporate side.

Some misguided reformers say we should let gov- ernors appoint the judges. Hogwash. That would merely shift the buying from the court to the governor's office, plus it removes our judges from any direct accountability to We the People.

The better plan is to provide public financing for these judicial campaigns and get all special-interest money out of the elections, so that judges can start serving justice rather than money.