Texas Attorney General John Cornyn wants to know how five trial lawyers who stand to share billions of dollars in fees for handling the state's tobacco settlement got the cushy assignment from the state.
Another, from 1982, invalidated a Washington state measure that prohibited assignment of public school pupils to attain racially balanced campus enrollments.
As part of a contract to protect American diplomats and other employees worldwide, the State Department hired Blackwater for a multiyear assignment in Iraq, renewable each year.