Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a potential GOP presidential candidate, stepped up his attack Thursday on President Barack Obama's federal health care law with a court filing challenging its cost to states.

Pawlenty and Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri, both Republicans leaving office soon, joined in the federal court filing in Pensacola, Fla.

A judge there ruled last month that parts of a lawsuit filed by 20 other states challenging the health care overhaul can go to trial. The two governors' filing seeks permission to submit a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the lawsuit.

The filing, written by a Washington lawyer from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the governors are safeguarding their citizens from "federal abuse of the spending power." They argue the law places liabilities on states through a Medicaid expansion.

"Although the Act indicates that the federal government will initially pay for some Medicaid expansions, the states are advised that they will pay for 10 percent of some unspecified costs in four years, and there is no indication that the states will not pay more in succeeding periods," the governors' document said.

Pawlenty has been vocal in his opposition to the law. He has said he would make repealing it a focal point of a run for president in 2012 if he wages a campaign. Pawlenty has ordered state agencies to avoid discretionary grants related to the health law.

Court-appointed defense attorneys in Wisconsin say they deserve a raise, and they're asking the state Supreme Court to help make it happen.

But the justices say it's up to state lawmakers to make that decision.

Court-appointed lawyers represent defendants who can't afford to hire their own. Defense attorneys say the current $40-per-hour rate doesn't attract quality lawyers. They say that leaves the poor with inadequate representation.

Madison attorney John Skilton says those defense attorneys should make $80 per hour, with annual increases tied to the consumer price index.

Wisconsin Public Radio says lawmakers have refused to raise the rate. Justice David Prosser says lawmakers won't change their minds just because the state's high court asks them to.

A Des Moines Register poll shows more than one-third of voters want to remove three Iowa Supreme Court justices who joined a unanimous ruling that legalized gay marriage.

The poll published Sunday found that 37 percent of likely voters intend to vote to remove all three justices and 34 percent say they will vote to retain all the judges. Another 10 percent plan to retain only some justices, 11 percent don't intend on vote on the judges and 8 percent aren't sure how they'll vote.

If Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and justices David Baker and Michael Streit lose retention votes, it will be the first time voters removed an Iowa Supreme Court justice.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is apologizing for the 50,000 recorded telephone calls made to Nevada voters in which she supports a ballot measure to change the way state judges are selected.

O'Connor said Wednesday that she did not authorize the use of her recorded statement in the robo calls, which awakened many Nevadans after midnight Monday. The calls were supposed to be made midday.

But O'Connor said that, whatever the time, her voice should not have been used at all.

"I did not authorize the use of my recorded statement as part of automated telephone calls to Nevada residents, and I regret that the statement was used in this way," she said in a statement issued through the Supreme Court.

At the same time, she defended her involvement in the campaign to amend the state constitution to reduce the role of elections in the choice of judges. O'Connor has appeared in a television commercial on behalf of the Question 1 measure that Nevadans will vote on on Tuesday.

Some critics have said O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, should refrain from political activity because she continues to hear cases as a federal judge. On Tuesday, she was in the majority on a panel of federal appeals court judges that struck down a key part of an Arizona law requiring voters to prove they are citizens before registering to vote.

O'Connor, 80, has traveled the country to criticize costly election campaigns for judges. She has said judicial elections erode confidence in an impartial judiciary and feed the perception that justice is for sale.

Since her retirement in 2006, O'Connor has been active on other issues as well, including calling for enhanced civics education for schoolchildren and advocating for Alzheimer's research. Her husband, John, died last year of complications arising from Alzheimer's disease.

The Federal Reserve has decided not to join major banks in asking the US Supreme Court to let the central bank keep secret the details of its emergency lending programs during the financial crisis.

A group representing US and European commercial banks on Tuesday appealed to the Supreme Court asking it not to force the Fed to disclose details of its bailouts, as a federal appeals court in New York had ordered in March.

The group said forcing disclosure could lead markets and customers to worry about banks' health, jeopardizing their business prospects.

The Fed did not explain why it chose not to join the banks' appeal. In a statement, it said it "will await a determination from the courts and will comply fully with any final order. The Federal Reserve remains committed to timely and responsible transparency of its operations."

Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, and News Corp's Fox News Network had sought bailout details under the federal Freedom of Information Act, which requires government agencies to make documents public.

The Supreme Court is expected in coming weeks to consider whether to review the unanimous March ruling by the second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ordering the Fed to release details of programs it adopted starting in late 2007 to shore up the financial system.

These programs, along with other measures to support the economy, more than doubled the central bank's balance sheet to well over USD 2 trillion, a process that accelerated after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's September 2008 collapse.

"The Fed has historically argued that you could have bank runs if you had disclosure, and that it did not want to enable these by having super-timely disclosure of problems," said William Ford, a professor at Middle Tennessee State University and former president of the Federal Reserve bank in Atlanta. "But we're already moving in the direction of full and immediate disclosure, quite aside from the legal battles."

Walker Todd, research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and a former Fed legal officer in Cleveland and New York, said the banks group  the Clearing House Association LLC  might be more likely to have its appeal heard without the Fed's involvement.

A Mississippi businessman has been awarded $103 million in a lawsuit against the Chicago-based law firm that he accused of defrauding his oil and gas business.

Lavon Evans Jr. filed the lawsuit in Jones County Circuit Court in Mississippi in 2008. It sought $150 million in damages from attorney Joel Held, who worked at the Dallas office of the Baker & Mackenzie law firm.

Held represented one of Evans' companies and manipulated documents and disclosed confidential information to benefit Reed Cagle, Evans' partner in Laredo Energy Holdings LLC, the lawsuit claims, among other things.

Baker & McKenzie told The Hattiesburg American in a statement that it disagrees with the verdict and will appeal.