Two Maine judges have irritated some environmentalists around Maine because the judges accepted free trips to a seminar/vacation in Montana sponsored by conservative organizations. Given how easy it would have been to avoid the potential for a conflict of interest, the judges behavior, hardly the outrage that some have called it, is nonetheless perplexing.

U.S. District Judges Gene Carter and D. Brock Hornby were among some 300 of the nation’s 900 federal judges who during the last several years have attended the seminars about the environment and property rights. The seminars are put on by a group called Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE), which is funded by a variety of conservative sources, including Richard Mellon Scaife.

Judge Hornby defended his attendance by arguing that judges needed “all the training and education they can get in areas like science, economics and technology in today’s world of increasingly complex litigation.” Well said and true. But the judge’s line of reasoning is also not one likely to stand up in his court. The question isn’t whether judges need to keep up with the events of the world but who should pay for their continuing educations.

And the answer is easy: Judges shouldn’t accept gifts worth, in this case, a couple of thousand dollars if they are likely at some point to be asked to decide the outcome of a trial affecting these benefactors.

If these seminars are important enough to attend, the court system should put up the money for them. Failing that and acknowledging that they aren’t lavishly paid, the judges could cover their own expenses. It might even be a tax deduction for them.

This is particularly important because issues surrounding property rights are ending up in court more and more often. The judges were right to try to stay current with the debates over takings and land use. But the fact that they are more likely to hear cases involved in these property questions means that they must be especially careful about their associations with the groups that bring the cases.

But despite the group’s name, there is no such thing as a free seminar — at least not one without the host having an expectation that its week of entertainment will help its views influence decisions made by the attendees. Judges should avoid even the perception of this influence by choosing their seminars carefully and paying their own way.