January 22, 2007
SNL Skewers Hill
"I think most Democrats know me...they understand my support for the war was always insincere."
This is one of the funnier skits I've seen lately on a show that's become mostly unwatchable.
Posted by bill at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)
July 31, 2006
Point, counterpoint, reply
Last week I noted a WSJ op-ed that discussed the American Bar Association's "hit job" on Bush appeals court nominee Mike Wallace. Today, the ABA prez Michael Greco fires back, insisting the ABA's Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary "examines only three factors in its evaluations: professional competence, integrity and judicial temperament. It explicitly does not consider a nominee's ideology or philosophy" and that, as to Wallach specifically, the committee's "evaluation is based upon the information it received from dozens of his peers, colleagues, lawyers he worked with and judges he appeared before." That and other ABA exercises, Greco argues, are strictly non-ideological.
Something of a reply by the WSJ is published today, too and delves into one example giving the lie to Greco's claims.
Posted by bill at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2006
ABA drive-by
To the uninitiated, the American Bar Association may seem harmless enough - an industry group like any other attending to continuing education, hosting seminars, etc. But the reality is the ABA is a political interest group and, owing mainly to the plaintiff trial bar and predominately liberal law professors, the ABA sees itself as the guardian of Earl Warren's and Thurgood Marshall's extra-Constitutional legacy on the Supreme Court and in the federal bar. To many attorneys, the ABA doesn't represent us any more than NOW represents "women" -- which is why many who dare believe in "federalism" opt instead for the Federalist Society.
Anyway, after President Bush took office he made clear he didn't regard the ABA as having veto power over his nominees -- and in the process he marginalized the ABA, much the same way he did the NAACP, until last week. Well, this didn't please the ABA, and true to form they're exacting retribution in the form of a "hit job" on the President's nominee to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Michael Wallace; the ABA's motives and tactics are exposed today by the WSJ.
Posted by bill at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2005
Shameless
How long does it take for lawyers to attempt to cash in on tragedy? In the case of Chicago's Powers, Rogers & Smith, no more than 3 days.
Posted by bill at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2005
Another angle on SCOTUS
Writing for the Atlantic Monthly, Stuart Taylor Jr. argues that while partisans focus on SCOTUS' political makeup, the country has largely ignored, and suffers from, the Court's "homogenization by professional background":
Now that Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her retirement, how many remaining justices have ever held elected office? How many have previously served at the highest levels of the executive branch of government? How many have argued big-time commercial lawsuits within the past thirty-five years? How many have ever been either criminal defense lawyers or trial prosecutors? How many have presided over even a single criminal or civil trial? The answers are zero, zero, zero, one, and one, respectively.
He continues:
Should we be concerned? After all, the Supreme Court is supposed to sit above politics and apart from popular whims. But when a large majority of the Court's justices have never cross-examined a lying cop or a slippery CEO, never faced a jury, never slogged through the swamps of the modern discovery process, something has gone wrong. As the Court has lost touch with the real-world ramifications of its decisions, our judicial system has clearly suffered.
Read the whole thing; this is an even-handed look at the issue Taylor identifies, although it's hard to discount that a judge's political leanings are the root of intellectual laziness or worse, dishonesty.
Posted by bill at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 25, 2005
Jonathan Turley
I hope to post more later on Jonathan Turley's op-ed today for the LA Times in which he breathlessly concludes, "that in answering "Who is John Roberts?" The burden may now have shifted to the White House to fully answer this question," based on Roberts' response to a question about his faith. For starters, there are reasons rules of evidence are skeptical about hearsay, and Turley's leaps are the reason why -- here we have
"double hearsay" (Turley says they said their sources said) as his starting point. More later - a crucial lawyer league softball game calls.
Posted by bill at 04:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 22, 2005
Tripe
This seems to be the level of "debate" we can expect from the left on the Roberts nomination. Just a little too happy middle-America- Catholic looking for the urban blues. I suppose nipple rings, darker skin, and Cesare Catini shoes would have been better?
Pardon me, but Robin Givhan is an asshole.
Posted by bill at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 20, 2005
Things to think about
Let's be clear about a few things:
First, if you're a neophyte when it comes to judges, the constitution and confirmations, I strongly recommend Robert H. Bork's book, The Tempting of America. Whether liberals want to admit this or not, Bork was borked because he is a colossal intellect who threatened liberalism in ways they didn't want to imagine. In The Tempting of America, Bork not only recalls his confirmation nightmare but outlines the court's proper function alongside the political world. It provides an outstanding backdrop for the battle over John Roberts, which has already been joined. (More after the jump - I'm trying to keep page one breezy.)
A second point concerns the blather we're going to hear about positions Roberts took as Solicitor General (and elsewhere). For starters, attacking a judicial candidate on the basis of positions advocated on behalf of clients reflects a misunderstanding (best case) about courts, the law and politics. Don't ask how I remember this, but the Los Angeles County Bar summed it up in 2003:
...neither the identity of a lawyer's clients nor the zealous advocacy of their causes necessarily provides any insight into the lawyer's personal beliefs, nor do they necessarily provide any indication of how a nominee may view a particular case presented to him or her as a judge. Indeed, representing clients whose views we may disagree with comes with the territory for many attorneys.
As an underling to the Solicitor General, Roberts had a client, too; in this respect his job was no different than private law practice. His client just happened to be the President of the United States, and so his responsibilities touched upon politically-charged issues, rather than insurance coverage, divorce, contracts and the likes. But Roberts' job was, simply, to advocate his client's position. Again, anyone who argues otherwise misunderstands (again, best case).
Posted by bill at 08:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sounding the alarm
Moveon.org joins the fray. Here's an excerpt of an email they sent last night:
We've got to stop Roberts. He opposed clean air rules and worked to help coal companies strip-mine mountaintops. He worked with Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr), and tried to keep Congress from defending the Voting Rights Act. He wrote that Roe v. Wade should be "overruled," and as a lawyer argued (and won) the case that stopped some doctors from even discussing abortion.
The whole letter is below the fold.
In the past weeks, Republicans and Democrats have called on President Bush to nominate a moderate for the Supreme Court—someone who would honor the legacy of independent Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But last night, President Bush nominated Judge John Roberts, a far-right lawyer and corporate lobbyist, to fill her post on the Supreme Court.
We've got to stop Roberts. He opposed clean air rules and worked to help coal companies strip-mine mountaintops. He worked with Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr), and tried to keep Congress from defending the Voting Rights Act. He wrote that Roe v. Wade should be "overruled," and as a lawyer argued (and won) the case that stopped some doctors from even discussing abortion.
Join our urgent petition to let our senators know we expect them to oppose John Roberts right now at:
http://political.moveon.org/roberts/?id=5817-6356535-H1afZU31oLQg0T65zF2tkA&t=3
This is one of the most important domestic fights of President Bush's career. We can win—Americans overwhelmingly want a moderate judge. But to win, we need to get the word out early that Roberts is out of the mainstream.
After you've signed, please send this message on to your friends and colleagues. We need to fight back against the misinformation that the Bush administration is putting out.
John Roberts has little experience as a judge—he was only appointed in 2003. But he's got a lot of experience as a corporate lobbyist and lawyer, consistently favoring wealthy corporations over regular Americans.
Here's a list of some of the things that make Roberts the wrong pick for the Supreme Court:
Wrong on environmental protection: Roberts appears to want to limit the scope of the Endangered Species Act, and in papers he wrote while in law school he supported far-right legal theories about "takings" which would make it almost impossible for the government to enforce most environmental legislation.
Wrong on civil rights: Roberts worked to keep Congress from defending parts of the Voting Rights Act.
Wrong on human rights: As a appeals court judge, Roberts ruled that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to some prisoners of war.
Wrong on our right to religious freedom: Roberts argued that schools should be able to impose religious speech on attendees.
Wrong on women's rights: Roberts wrote that "Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled." He also weighed in on behalf of Operation Rescue, a violent anti-abortion group, in a federal case.
President Bush could have chosen many fair-minded and independent jurists to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Instead, he chose a corporate partisan loved by Bush's right-wing base but out of step with the rest of the country.
Tell your senators they need to stop John Roberts now, at:
http://political.moveon.org/roberts/?id=5817-6356535-H1afZU31oLQg0T65zF2tkA&t=4
We'll be in touch soon about next steps. For now, please help us gather as many voices as possible to keep the Supreme Court fair. And thanks for everything you're doing.
Sincerely,
–Ben, Tanya, Justin, Jennifer and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005
Posted by bill at 08:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 19, 2005
Getting to know the opposition
Links are below the fold (to organizations and what they've said about John Roberts).
On the "pro" side: Michelle Malkin; Tim Chapman says he's "rock solid." (But it's way more fun to watch the loony left, so click below.)
Emily Bazelon and David Newman at Slate sum things up:
Roberts has been floated as a nominee who could win widespread support in the Senate. Not so likely. He hasn't been on the bench long enough for his judicial opinions to provide much ammunition for liberal opposition groups. But his record as a lawyer for the Reagan and first Bush administrations and in private practice is down-the-line conservative on key contested fronts, including abortion, separation of church and state, and environmental protection.
Roberts is opposed by the following organizations:
As expressed in one case where he would have invalidated a provision of the Endangered Species Act, his exceedingly restrictive view of federal law-making authority – more restrictive than the current Supreme Court’s – could threaten a wide swath of workplace, civil rights, public safety and environmental protections. In his years of service as a political appointee in the administrations of Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Judge Roberts also helped craft legal policies that sought to weaken school desegregation efforts, the reproductive rights of women, environmental protections, church-state separation and the voting rights of African Americans.Americans for Democratic Action
Feminist Majority asks for "Emergency Donations" to "save Roe."
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights:
While D.C. Circuit Court Judge John Roberts's experience as a judge is limited, what little record he has on the bench raises grave concerns about his ideology and judicial philosophy, calling into question his elevation to the Supreme Court.National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association:
John Roberts is a D.C. Circuit Court judge who clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, worked in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, and went into private practice during the Clinton years. As Deputy Solicitor General, he co-authored a brief for the government in Rust v. Sullivan in which he argued that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overturned. He also co-authored an amicus brief in support of Operation Rescue and six individuals who had obstructed access to reproductive health care clinics.National Organization for Women:
As Deputy Solicitor General, Roberts filed an amicus curiae brief in NOW's case against Operation Rescue — in support of Operation Rescue, of course and in support of named individuals who routinely blocked access to clinics. At the Supreme Court level, that case was called Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic (it was NOW v. Operation Rescue at the trial and appellate levels). The brief argued that the protesters’ behavior did not discriminate against women and that blockades and clinic protests were protected speech under the First Amendment. The case helped us push congressional passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund
Naral (they've already posted the following form letter, for people who can’t type and think at the same time:
As your constituent, I am urging you to oppose John Roberts, President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court.
If Roberts is confirmed to a lifetime appointment, there is little doubt that he will work to overturn Roe v. Wade. As Deputy Solicitor General under the first President Bush, he argued to the Supreme Court that "Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled....
(Belated h/t to Volokh for the link to the list.)
Posted by bill at 08:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Roberts
Bush goes nuclear and sticks by the people who elected him (pretty much). If it's Roberts, whatever happy talk there's been about a smooth confirmation process will evaporate within, literally, minutes. Roberts' credentials won't matter to Senate Democrats (more here). This sentence will: "We continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled." As the WP report notes, Roberts wrote it in 1991, while a deputy for a Solicitor General by the name of Ken Starr.
Let's watch as the Angry Left get angrier, shall we?
UPDATE: Maybe "nuclear" was too strong. And what was I thinking? It didn't matter who Bush nominated.
Posted by bill at 07:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 12, 2005
The Specter Specter
Why doesn't the good Senator just make it official and switch to the Democratic Party? It's sometimes hard to find issues on which he agrees with Republicans - even the vaunted "moderates" among them.
His latest:
The leadership of the Senate and of the Senate Judiciary Committee emerged from meeting President Bush shortly after 8 a.m. Names were mentioned, although not by the President.
Several Senators stressed that they had urged the President not to choose a nominee from a federal appeals court but rather someone with "practical" experience....
Specter said he felt "comfortable" that there would be someone "who is a consensus candidate." He said the President and the Senators discussed scheduling in some detail. "I am flexible," said Specter. ".....Our duty is to have a justice in place by the first Monday in October."
Specter seemed angry about "interest groups," saying they "vastly overstate their influence.....What they're doing is counterproductive and a lot of times insulting.....The interest groups did not defeat Judge Bork. It was his judicial philosophy."
Specter said there was "one other topic....The sense to look for somebody as a nominee who does not come out of the circuit courts. I'll attribute this to myself," he said. "It would be good to have some diversity" in terms of the candidate's backround.
What a laugh. Let's be perfectly clear: By definition, unless President Bush allows Democrats to do the nominating, there will be no "consensus candidate." Specter of course knows this, but he's a whipped bitch around Patrick Leahy, who wouldn't know "consensus" it if kicked him in the mouth.
Posted by bill at 12:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The constitution of the Constitution
Paul Mirengoff exposes the fallacy of "defining judicial activism and restraint as willingness to vote, respectively, to overturn and uphold legislation":
The key distinction here is that conservative judges tend to determine what the Constitution does and doesn't protect and prohibit based on a careful reading of what the Constitution says and how it originally was understood. Liberal judges tend to determine the meaning of the Constitution based on their policy preferences, and because those preferences often bear little relation to those of the Constitution's drafters, they rely on whatever they can get their hands on. It may be true that conservative judges often vote in support of their policy preferences too. But, as conservatives, their policy preferences are likely to reflect the traditional preferences and values that the authors of the Constitution believed in and set forth in the document. The left-liberal impulse is very different, as Robert Bork has shown.
In other words, don't believe the nonsense about the Constitution as a "living document," even though it's standard fare in America's classrooms. There are laws, and then there is the Constitution.
Posted by bill at 08:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 08, 2005
Bzzzzzz
bzzz, is Rehnquist announcing his retirement this afternoon?
Posted by bill at 02:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 06, 2005
Decrepit Judges
Don't miss Reason's interview with historian David J. Garrow on "Supreme Court Senility"(h/t: CJ blogger Gadsden Flag). On the Justices' golden years:
--Thurgood Marshall: "Slow, feeble, and increasingly deaf, he once embarrassed himself during oral arguments by revealing he didn't realize which side the lawyer he was interrogating represented.
-- Harry Blackmun "ceded to his law clerks much greater control over his official work than did any of the other 15 justices from the last half-century whose papers are publicly available" not because he wasn't capable but because "he just didn't want to."
-- "William O. Douglas closed out his time on the bench by dozing during arguments, addressing people by the wrong names, and speaking in non sequiturs."
-- "Joseph McKenna was so incompetent at the end of his term that, in the words of his colleague William Howard Taft, he once "wrote an opinion deciding the case one way when there had been a unanimous vote the other, including his own."
Maybe Bruce Bartlett is onto something.
Posted by bill at 03:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Abortion and the Court
William Saletan, writing for Slate, counters what some of his colleagues there believe: that in nominating a SCOTUS justice the President "can't risk a replay of what happened to his dad. They think he needs to nominate a moderate to O'Connor's seat--most likely, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales--to avoid a political explosion over Roe."
This seems like wishful thinking; it's based on the unproven fantasy that Pro-Life politicians, if they have to discuss those beliefs, will suffer at the ballot box. Saletan cites his own book, which I haven't yet read, but Bush, for one (and unlike his father in 1991), isn't facing a campaign and maybe more importantly, runs a "no pain, no gain" kind of administration.
Fred Barnes reminds us:
As Bush and his aides never tire of telling everyone, he came to the White House to do big things and achieve important changes. And transforming the Supreme Court into a more conservative body and shrinking the role of unelected judges in American life is one of his major goals.
Bush also prides himself on not doing the easy or politically popular thing. He could have sought minor adjustments in Social Security to improve its solvency, but he chose to promote total reform. After routing al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, he could have stopped and gone no further, preserving his high poll rating. Instead he deposed Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
It may turn out that Bush choses the crassly political alternative Barnes discusses (tokenism in the form of a nod to Gonzalez isn’t out of the question), but I cannot imagine Bush would capitulate for fear of a “political explosion.”
More wishful thinking from Saletan:
...abortion isn't just an up-or-down issue. It's an issue of incremental restrictions. On the restrictions, the public tends to agree with Bush. And while Roe isn't directly at stake in this court appointment, some of the restrictions are.
This has been the case for a while, but N.O.W. et al. aren’t sounding the alarm over “incremental restrictions.” In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Scalia wrote that even the plurality did not
"squarely contend that Roe v. Wade was a correct application of "reasoned judgment"; merely that it must be followed, because of stare decisis. But in their exhaustive discussion of all the factors that go into the determination of when stare decisis should be observed and when disregarded, they never mention "how wrong was the decision on its face?" Surely, if "[t]he Court's power lies . . . in its legitimacy, a product of substance and perception," the "substance" part of the equation demands that plain error be acknowledged and eliminated. Roe was plainly wrong...
Let’s be clear: Even before Justice O’Connor’s retirement, a majority of the Court believes Roe is only valid by reference to stare decisis. I’ll part ways with Michelle Malkin here – O’Connor’s replacement doesn’t guarantee Roe will be overturned, but some aspects of pro-choice paranoia may not be paranoia at all.
Posted by bill at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
