First Monday in October
By AndrewHyman Posted in News — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is much in the news this week, due to the release of his new autobiography. Jan Crawford Greenburg has more about Justice Thomas and his book. I've always thought that Thomas exemplifies how a good judge ought to handle the power of judicial review. The late Philip B. Kurland put it this way:
To say that courts could pass on the question of Congressional power is not the same as saying that their discretion is unlimited on this score. The Justices were to measure infringement of the Constitution, not the degree to which their own sensibilities had been violated.
In judicial nomination news, Frank Wooten has an article today in the Post and Courier, titled "Here comes the judge: Give Conrad a fair shot", regarding the Fourth Circuit nomination of Robert Conrad. Also, here's an article about the recent hearing on the nomination of John Tinder for the Seventh Circuit.
No word yet on when the floor votes will occur for Fifth Circuit nominees Leslie H. Southwick and Jennifer W. Elrod, both of whom have cleared committee.
Time travel
by BoBo
Of course, in my previous comment, I meant "2009" instead of "2209". I guess I've reading too much futuristic science fiction recently. :)
CJ Roberts in today's in Washington Grange
by Dienekes
a wryly humorous observation: "Libertarians have a lot more rules than the other parties." hehehe.
Beyond Southwick, Elrod, Tinder and Haynes, I think only three COA nominees have any real chance, however so slight, of being confirmed in 2008. They are Keisler, Conrad and Matthews. Despite Keisler's superior credentials, both Conrad and Matthews might have a better chance of confirmation than Keisler for two reasons:
1) It would appear that neither will have to deal with any form of blue slip obstruction. Both should get the automatic support of their two homestate Republican senators. If Dole, Burr, Graham and DeMint get 100% behind these two early on, they might be able to overcome the obvious Democrat desire to save all the Fourth Circuit seats for a Dem president to fill in 2209.
2) Both have South Carolina contacts. Matthews is a respected lawyer in South Carolina, and, as the Clemson article linked to above points out, Conrad is a South Carolina native. This is important because South Carolina's Lindsay Graham is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As a member of this committee, Graham should be able to monitor all the internal Dem machinations in committee to block the two and quickly respond to them. With this type of immediate shepherding, Conrad and Matthews have a better chance of getting out of committee.