Dubya takes a gamble with Helen Miers

Working for a lawfirm that specializes in "union busting avoidance" seems to be a "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" for Bush administration nominees. Like Ed Foulke, Bush's recent nominee for head of OSHA, Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' former lawfirm, Austin based Locke Liddell & Sapp, of which she was co-managing partner, had an active union avoidance practice (they have also contributed to the Tom Delay Expenses fund):

The threat of a union organizing effort or strike can be traumatic for any company- which is why you need an experienced partner on your side. Locke Liddell labor and employment law lawyers have handled hundreds of union arbitrations and labor contracts, and have extensive experience in union avoidance counseling....For union-free companies, we provide union-avoidance advice and strategies in emerging situations. Our experience extends to the most specialized areas, including the Railway Labor Act that governs many union actions. We have handled a major strike against a national transportation company, and use such experience to counsel any size business on its labor relations concerns.

She has had no experience in judging ...so neither have many other Supreme Court Appointees see here

More here

Helen Miers is of course, like Condoleezza Rice, unmarried, childless and a “very close personal friend” of Dubya’s with overnight visiting rights to the Austin Gubernatorial mansion (see "The White House Wives"). She has ties to evangelical Christian churches but this didn’t stop her being Chairman of the Texas Lottery...(see more below) run by Gtech. UK readers will remember Gtech’s Guy Snowden not only provided flights for the UK Oflot regulator but also had a misunderstanding of what was discussed in a meeting and resulted in Virgin’s Richard Branson suing for libel

Branson claimed that Guy Snowden, GTech's chairman and chief executive had offered him a bribe to withdraw his non-profit bid to run the UK national lottery.
He won £100,000 and Snowden resigned. GTech has been the subject of six FBI investigations in the US.

Ex IBM manager Snowden now heads Richardson, TX based GTESS …”Simply put, GTESS applies specialized, proprietary technology to automate highly manual, error-prone medical claim payment processes.”

However that’s not all….... in 1997, when GTech's licence for operating the Texas State lottery was under fire.. The lottery director was sacked following the revelation that GTech had put her boyfriend on the company payroll while he was under indictment for bribery

A new, clean-hands director, Lawrence Littwin, was appointed by the Texas Lottery Commission then headed by Governor Bush, recently appointed "close personal friend", Helen Miers. Littwin demanded an audit of GTech's accounts, he ended GTech's contract and put it out for re-tender. He also launched an inquiry into GTech's political donations.

But something went wrong. The Texas Lottery Commission headed by Helen Miers fired Littwin. Almost immediately, Governor Dubya Bush’s -appointed commissioners cancelled the bidding for a new operator, although the winner had already been announced - and it was not GTech. The commissioners John Hill, and Anthony Sadberry and Helen Miers also halted the financial audit, ended the political payola investigation that Littwin was keen on - and re-instated GTech.

Why ?

Well Gtech paid lobbyist Ben Barnes, ( then and now (ex) lieutenant-governor of Texas), fees of an eye - popping $23 million (£14.2 million) – the same Ben Barnes whose aide had suggested in 1968 to Brigadier-General James Rose that he find a safe spot in the Air Guard for Congressman Bush's son. Who was now the Governor....and is now the POTUS.

News of the payment to Barnes was in an unsigned letter to the US Justice Department, in a civil suit by Littwin – Barnes did concede he got Bush Jnr into the Guard; and he received millions from GTech.

Coincidentally GTech chairman Guy Snowden was a partner in a big real estate venture with Barnes's wife. Anyway in November 1999 Gtech agreed to pay $300,000 to Littwin. In return, the former Texas Lottery agreed to seal Barnes's five-hour deposition transcript....and of course this silences Littwin - unless of course the Senate Appointments Committee asked him to testify ?

After Littwin was dismissed, the Democratic-controlled Texas House of Representatives passed a resolution accusing the commission of stopping the investigation of GTech.

''The investigation was never completed," the resolution stated. ''The Texas Lottery Commission did not take any action."

Helen Miers resigned in 2000 before her 4 years were up. The pic above shows Helen advising her "very close friend" about Osama Bin Laden - maybe if Reuters run those pictures by Photoshop they will find he was probably asking for some "bathroom" time.

Gtech is still running the Texas State Lottery.

You can, of course be certain that they have cleaned up their act....of course.


Recent blogs on same topic here