Appellate Judges Cited as Focus of New Search (WaPo)

[jefferson_dem]

Appellate Judges Cited as Focus of New Search
Supreme Court Candidates on Short List Were Vetted This Summer, Sources Say

By Jo Becker and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 29, 2005; A04

With President Bush expected to pick a new Supreme Court nominee within days, several sources close to the selection process said the White House is focusing on a short list of appellate court judges vetted this summer before he nominated John G. Roberts Jr. to the high court.

The administration has backed away from any insistence that the nominee be a woman or a minority. Rather, it is focused on potential nominees who have previously won Senate confirmation, whose intellectual qualifications would be unquestioned and who have paper trails that make clear their conservative credentials, said one source who is close to the nomination process.

Those candidates, according to the sources, include several federal appellate judges, among them: Samuel A. Alito Jr., J. Michael Luttig, Michael W. McConnell, Emilio M. Garza, Priscilla R. Owen and Edith H. Jones. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the discussions.

By focusing on such candidates, the Bush administration is shifting to what one source described as President Ronald Reagan's doctrine of picking justices. "The nominee can't be a stealth candidate for a number of reasons," the source said. "There are very, very few people who have the kind of credentials that the administration can put up in this environment that would not have a record."

<SNIP>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102802085_pf.html

[rwheeler31]

1. ok who is the best of this yukky bunch?

nt

[Chan790]

2. none of the above.

they're all horrible.

[kurth]

3. The Supreme Court works fine with 8 justices

Why add more assholes?

If Bush insists on adding another asshole to the Court, make him wait until 2007, or 2009.

[imported_dem]

4. Which one should be kicked out

There are currently 9 justices. O'Connor doesn't leave until a new one is appointed.

[NYC Liberal]

9. Scalia, or Thomas. Take your pick.

[JanusAscending]

5. McConnell !!

I believe he ruled against Bush vs Gore in one of the appellate courts, and I heard one other positive thing about him, but I can't recall what right now. I'm going to try "googling" it!!

[Chan790]

6. Close

he's a part-time Con. Law professor at a law school (don't recall which)...teaches his students that B v. G decision is "Constitutionally Untenable" and "Simply Incorrect." He's still a barking Corporatist loonie and a Hawk. What he isn't is a religious conservative and he prides himself on being a constitutional scholar and his legacy as such...he's unlikely to make "legally bad decisions" just because the correct outcome doesn't jive with what he wants like Owen, Jones and Alito have been known to do; however his judicial philosophy is batshit crazy nevertheless.

[JanusAscending]

8. I'm closer than you were I'm afraid. I did check google

There's a very good article on the first page, (in re to being possible Supreme Court nominee). It would do you well to read it. He "dueled" with Scalia in print over drug laws in respect to a sect using peyote in it's ceremonies (Employment Div. v Smith) Anyone who goes toe to toe with Scalia is OK in my book. He also questioned whether Clinton should have been Impeached. It was when he was Clerking for Just. Wm. Brennan Jr. that he criticized 2000 Supreme Court decision on Bush v Gore. I will agree there are some things I don't like about him,as school vouchers, and abortion rights, but he is the lesser of the other evils, IMO.

[NYC Liberal]

10. Well anyone who Bush nominates is going to have

a bad judicial philosophy. But let's hope for this best nonetheless...MAYBE he's it.

[ticapnews]

7. Some profiles from US News and World Report

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050719/19alito.htm
Nicknamed "Scalito" for views resembling those of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito Jr. is a favorite son of the political right. Appointed in 1990 by George H.W. Bush to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito has earned a reputation for intellectual rigor and polite but frequent dissent in a court that has been historically liberal.

A New Jersey native, the 55-year-old Alito received a bachelor's degree from Princeton and graduated from Yale Law School. He worked in the solicitor general's office during the Reagan administration and was a U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey when George H.W. Bush nominated him to the Third Circuit. His 15 years on the bench have been marked by strong conservatism on a case-by-case basis that avoids sweeping opinions on constitutionality.

In 1997, Alito authored the majority opinion upholding a city's right to stage a holiday display that included a Nativity scene and a menorah because the city also included secular symbols and a banner emphasizing the importance of diversity. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito was the sole dissenter on the Third Circuit, which struck a Pennsylvania law that required women seeking abortions to consult their husbands. He argued that many of the potential reasons for an abortion, such as "economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition . . . may be obviated by discussion prior to abortion." The case went on to the Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court's decision 6 to 3.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050719/19garza.htm
Judge Emilio Garza, a steadfast opponent of abortion and forceful advocate for judicial restraint, has been on the Republican short list for a Supreme Court spot for over a decade. By judicial standards, his ascent has been supersonic. Garza was first appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 after serving as a state judge in Texas for only one year. President George H.W. Bush named him to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991, and within a year the White House was considering him for the Supreme Court slot now held by Clarence Thomas.

In two cases during the 1990s, Garza voiced his opposition to the Roe v. Wade decision and questioned its constitutionality. In both cases, Garza said he was forced by judicial precedent that he called "inimical to the Constitution" to join his colleagues in siding against state laws that would have sharply narrowed the right to an abortion. In 1997, Garza concurred with colleagues in striking down certain provisions in a Louisiana law that required parental notification when a minor sought an abortion, although he wrote that the Supreme Court's rulings in Roe and subsequent cases "have always stood on precarious constitutional footing." In that ruling, Garza wrote that "it is unclear to me that the court itself still believes that abortion is a fundamental right under the 14th Amendment."

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050719/19jones.htm
"If right now Justices Scalia and Thomas are Bobbsey twins," said David Dow, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, "then if Judge Jones were there, they would become Bobbsey triplets . . . . She has proven to be a deeply ideological judge."

...Then in 1984 she received a call from a friend in the Justice Department asking whether she was interested in becoming a federal judge. Jones has described her appointment to the bench as a case of "knowing the right person at the right time."

A longtime advocate of an expedited capital-punishment system, Jones, in a 1988 death-penalty case, said a defense attorney was playing "chicken" when he requested a stay one week before an execution. In an article two years later, Jones proposed eliminating the 30-day notice prior to an execution, a notice that she said "sandbagged" the process.

Jones was heavily criticized for her comments during oral arguments in a 1989 sexual harassment case. After a lawyer listed a series of sexual harassment claims, Jones said, "Well, your client wasn't raped." Jones eventually dissented from the court's ruling, saying the abuses did not amount to a "hostile environment."

Jones has pleased judicial conservatives with her steadfast opposition to activist judges and her views on abortion. In a 2004 abortion case, Jones railed against the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, calling it an "exercise of raw judicial power." She said recent studies about the emotional effects women face after an abortion and evidence that babies can feel pain earlier than was once believed could lead courts to conclude that a "woman's 'choice' is far more risky and less beneficial, and the child's sentience far more advanced, than the Roe court knew." Throughout her time on the bench, Jones has also continued to focus on bankruptcy, urging Congress to reform bankruptcy laws and serving on the National Bankruptcy Review Commission.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050719/19luttig.htm
Luttig became the nation's youngest federal appellate judge at 37 when President George H.W. Bush appointed him to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Alexandria, Va., in 1991–a reflection of his rapid ascent through the legal world. After graduating from Washington and Lee University in 1976, Luttig worked briefly in the Ford White House before taking a job as an aide at the Supreme Court. He attended U.Va. law school at the urging of Chief Justice Warren Burger and later served as a clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia, who was then sitting on the District of Columbia Appeals Court. Luttig served in a variety of positions at the Justice Department before being nominated to the bench. After his appointment but before taking his seat on the Fourth Circuit, Luttig, then assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, worked to help prepare Clarence Thomas and David Souter for their confirmation hearings.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050719/19mcconnell.htm
Conservatives admire McConnell's views on religion and government; he's been a vigorous opponent of abortion and a staunch supporter of school vouchers. Some liberals applaud McConnell's opposition to the Clinton impeachment and the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000; McConnell is also against a constitutional amendment banning flag burning. More than 300 law professors signed a letter of support when McConnell was appointed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Denver (though McConnell actually lives in Salt Lake City). The letter from the professors said that while they didn't always agree with McConnell's rulings, his "thoroughness and fairness to opposing viewpoints" make him an outstanding judge.

Religion and the law have been a focal point of his career as well as the subject of numerous writings and law-review articles. One of his central beliefs is that the rigid separation between church and state, which he says exists today, is a misreading of American history and jurisprudence. He criticized a 1983 Supreme Court ruling that revoked Bob Jones University's tax-exempt status because of the school's ban on interracial dating. McConnell argued that it infringed on the school's freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In 2000, he helped defend the right of the Boy Scouts to exclude homosexual scoutmasters from the organization and argued successfully before the high court that public money at the University of Virginia could be directed to religious publications.

McConnell is also an outspoken opponent of abortion. In 1998, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "the reasoning of Roe v. Wade is an embarrassment to those who take constitutional law seriously." And in 1996, he signed a statement endorsing a constitutional amendment banning the practice; he has also supported abortion opponents who block access to family-planning clinics.

[jefferson_dem]

11. Word is chimp will nominate Michael Luttig for SCOTUS on Monday.

- a real Federalist Society "turn-back-the-clock" type.

This, according to Hugh Hewitt (i know, i know, he's an asshat but worth monitoring from time to time) who had a couple commentators on with him. They were really pusing Luttig and suggested "sources say" Chimp will choose either him or Alito ... Monday.

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/J._Michael_Luttig

[JanusAscending]

14. What's his DAMN HURRY?

Senators are suggesting he run some names by them before he makes an ASS OUT OF HIMSELF AGAIN!! But, no, not him.....:hide: OH!.........I know why!!! He's got to get the "best and the brightest" in SCOTUS before the whole freakin' bunch of them get indicted and have to run back to "Mommy" to save their asses AGAIN!! I think it's time for a filibuster, and let them try their "nuklear" option on us now!:nuke: :thumbsdown:

[jefferson_dem]

16. Luttig and Alito are on the short, short list, according to this report

Bush narrows Supreme Court selection to 2, sources say

BY JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - Rebounding from the failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, President Bush is poised to select between two of the nation's leading conservative federal appeals court judges - both experienced jurists with deep backgrounds in constitutional law - for what promises to be a bruising Senate confirmation battle.

With an announcement expected Sunday or Monday, administration officials have narrowed the focus to Judges Samuel Alito of New Jersey and Michael Luttig of Virginia, sources involved in the process said. Both have sterling legal qualifications and solid conservative credentials, and both would set off an explosive fight with Senate Democrats, who are demanding a more moderate nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Sources close to the process cautioned that Bush still could pick someone else, noting that he had wanted to name a woman to replace O'Connor. He had considered Priscilla Owen of Texas, another federal appeals court judge, before tapping Miers, and she remains a distant possibility, administration sources said.

But sources in the administration and others involved in the process - outside the handful in Bush's tight inner circle who were weighing the selection this weekend at Camp David - said a nominee other than Alito or Luttig would come as a surprise.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/13031689.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[ok_cpu]

12. "in this environment..."

This environment with all the unreasonable demands that a supreme court justice be capable of at least a minor independent thought and be at last, like, you know, well, a judge or something....

:wtf:

[Blaq Dem]

13. O'Connor needs to stay on til '06

If she doesn't, all her work (abortion, affirmative action, etc) will be for nothing.

[Sgent]

15. Harriet Miers

is better than any of the above...