ConfirmThem

Anyone's thoughts as to the Giuliani article's contention that Rudy would be dangerous picking federal judges?

Anyone know more about this? From US News:

November 27, 2007 03:40 PM ET | Permanent Link
In a longshot campaign to use Sen. Trent Lott's retirement as a slap to Democrats, Bush allies are pushing for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to choose retired federal Judge Charles Pickering, rejected by Democrats for higher office, as Lott's replacement in the Senate.

"It would be the biggest in-your-face move if it happened," said one proponent of the move. Pickering was nominated for a federal appeals court post in 2002 but was blocked, in part because of his antiabortion position as well as charges of racial insensitivity. He was renominated and given a recess appointment but eventually withdrew his name.

Proponents of picking Pickering, 70, say it would also help to revive the issue of the role of judges and presidential preferences on the eve of the 2008 presidential race. Pickering's son, Rep. Chip Pickering, and Rep. Roger Wicker are considered the front-runners for the post, however, and GOP sources close to the situation say that Wicker has the advantage.

Charles Evers would be great for the Lott seat. He's getting along in years, but why not?

I think the biggest "in-your-face" would be when Pickering has to face election in '08 and loses.

Much more likely is Chip Pickering, Judge Pickering's son, being the replacement for Lott. He's retiring from the House and has already indicated an interest in the Senate.

Although I think Charles Pickering would indeed be an excellent choice to highlight judicial nominations, unfortunately he is too old to be a viable candidate for future elections. Chip Pickering might be better in terms of longevity. In addition, his presence would still be deliciously awkward for the Dems. He could constantly make speeches condemning the Dems for the way they treated his father.

Excellent point. I also like the guy they're mentioning might replace Lott - his name is Wicker. Like Pickering, he's a congressman, and like Pickering, he's a former aide to Lott, so he's an insider.

I have always assumed that Southwick was a Lott protege, but the Washington Post states otherwise:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR200711...

"Lott has never been a policy moderate, inclined to reach agreement with Democrats on ideological grounds. But he has almost always been a pragmatist, relishing the art of the deal. Just last month, as Lott labored to crack a wall of Democratic opposition to the confirmation of U.S. Appeals Judge Leslie H. Southwick, Lott wondered aloud to an aide why he was working so hard for a man he did not really know and someone who was much more closely allied with Mississippi's other Republican senator, Thad Cochran.

"I said to him, 'You know, it's not that you like Southwick. You just like the process. You want the deal,' and he just smiled," recalled the Lott aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was divulging private deliberations. "It was a game. It was, 'Let me figure out how to get this done.' "

Yes. I understand the values of the CCA and I think four years of a GOP president will secure all of the circuits (or all but the 9th), but I'm much less concernced about that than I am about the 9th.

Oz

Read my most recent story, "Amy Tuck for MS Senator" on First Cut Politics

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/casey/5333820.html

"Chief Judge Edith Jones of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held a key position in the controversial disciplining of U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent."

"As an investigator of sexual harassment claims, Jones cuts an unlikely figure. In court cases and public speeches, she has expressed little sympathy for women who file complaints."

"Did these views influence Jones' decision to present a plea bargain to the full Judicial Council that appears to many to be lenient in view of allegations that Kent forcibly pulled up his aide's blouse and put his mouth on her breast and then pushed her head down toward his crotch?

Jones isn't returning calls about the case and the council's actions are shrouded in secrecy. The public, not to mention any federal judges who are not on the panel and who are embarrassed by the affair, deserves to know more about the investigation Jones led and the plea bargain she presided over."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR200711...

"Frist, the former majority leader, has joined the Chicago private investment firm Cressey & Co. as a partner, Bloomberg reports. The new company specializes in the health-care industry."

And my understanding is that Frist, while at Cressey, is still working diligently on a timely confirmation for Keisler....NOT!!!

They do now appear on the Executive Calendar.

I think that a confirmation vote on these two, plus a vote on the other two already on the calendar (Tinder and Thapar) is the only progress we can expect on judges before the end of the year.

Does anyone have any insight on the type of Judge's Huckabee would appoint if he becomes The President of the United States

Yes, I have some insight into the kind of judges Huckabee would appoint, and it's alarming. While governor of Arkansas, he appointed Lavenski Smith to the Arkansas Supreme Court. Smith spent a short period of time on the Arkansas court, and soon after Smith was nominated by Bush and confirmed to the 8th COA. At the time, Huckabee had rave reviews for Smith, saying something along the lines of "You've heard it here first - Smith is such a superstar that I predict he will be on the US Supreme Court someday." Smith has since proven to be quite liberal on the 8th COA and really is Bush's worst appointment to that court and certainly one of his worst COA appointments in general.

So the only way Smith will be on SCOTUS is if a liberal Dem wins the presidency or Huckabee does! Maybe that's what he meant by his prediction??

An interesting twist to it is that Smith is steadfastly pro-life, so, as with Huckabee, he may be mostly socially conservative but is otherwise a clear liberal.

Given Huckabee's connection to Lavenski Smith (both from Hope, Arkansas, similar age, Smith worked for Huckabee's administration, appointed to SC in Ark., recommended to Bush for COA), I'm concerned Huckabee just might elevate Smith or someone like him to SCOTUS. I think the question must be put to Huckabee: What does he think of Smith on the 8th COA? Will he promise not to appoint judges/justices in Smith's mold? Will he commit to appointing originalists/constitutionalists in the Roberts/Scalia/Thomas/Alito mold? This is essential to know. Otherwise, Huckabee is completely untenable to conservatives.

Johnny Fontaine, I'd like to write a post about Huckabee and judges. Would you please give some further info? For example, do you have links or quotes about Judge Smith? And has Huckabee taken a position about any other 8th Circuit nominations? Thanks.

Smith may be an exception; every Senator, Gov. & POTUS is going to slip some cronies thru. SCOTUS is a different matter tho, and your questions certainly need to be asked.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/commentary-and-analysis/the-republican-not-...

From the comments on SCOTUSblog's entry concerning possible Supreme Court nominees if a Republican is elected president next year:

Matthew Friendly: "Lavenski Smith is far too liberal to ever be picked by a Republican president."

Matthew, what proof do you have?

Hans Bader: "Lavenski Smith has turned out to be ever-so- slightly left-of-center on the Eighth Circuit, left of that Circuit’s center on race discrimination claims, and willing to uphold some restrictions on anti-abortion signs (that latter fact is surprising given his pre-judicial litigation work with the Rutherford Institute). Despite his once conservative background, he now seems to be a moderate with some liberal tendencies."

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/executive_calendar/xcalv.pdf
Laplante and Schroeder were voted out of committee at the same time as O'Connor and Thapar on November 15th. Yet they weren't reported out to Executive Calendar by Leahy until November 27th, which is almost two weeks later. What gives? I can understand a nomination being reported a little late (say several days) like what happened IIRC with Elrod and Southwick, but two weeks? What new procedural move is this?

Usually, a nomination like Thapar's is reported to the full Senate with the following notation:

"Nov 15, 2007 Reported by Mr. Leahy. Committee on the Judiciary, without printed report."

However, Laplante and Schroeder's nominations were reported with this odd notation:

"Nov 27, 2007 Reported by Mr. Leahy. Committee on the Judiciary, under authority of the order of the Senate of 11/16/2007 without printed report."

I did some Google searches to find the Huckabee quote about Smith. I couldn't find it. It used to be on the DOJ website under Smith's nomination info but the links for old nominees are no longer active on the website. I don't know where else to find it, but I recall quite clearly the gist of the quote.

OK, no problem, thanks for looking. Hopefully, I'll get around to a Huckabee post within the next few days.

This has already been dredged up this year, and Quaid's telling of it is a textbook example of burying the lede. After waxing about how liberal Giuliani's appointments were in NYC, eventually she admits - in a manner designed to make the reader think it's beside the point yet protect her against claims of omission - that the system used in NYC makes those appointments a moot point. There's virtually nothing we can learn about what Giuliani would do on judges from whom he appointed in New York.

~Simon

"Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind." - Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 426 (1970) (Black, dissenting)

Simon, if Giuliani was asked to choose from a group of dorks, could he simply refuse, and demand a better group to choose from?

Andrew, I can't find the specific part of the city Code, but as I had understood it when this meme last did the rounds in February, "the mayor appoints members of an independent panel[,] [and a]spiring judges apply to the panel, which recommends three candidates for each vacancy. The mayor chooses among the three." That suggests to me that it's rather like saying that if the President sends the Senate a dork, the Senate can just send it back and demand a new one. What happens next? Even if we assume the mayor can reject all three candidates and can ask for a new batch, that doesn't stop those who drive the nomination process sending another batch of dorks.

I'll try to hunt down the provision that discusses this, I thought I'd eyeballed it earlier in the year but I can't find it now.

for his appointments to the panel? rather than his selection of judges (which I haven't been much willing to do, precisely because he didn't have much choice, though I still don't trust him on the type of judges he'd appoint as President, and that was before I knew he had so much say in selecting the selectors).

That's potentially a good point, but with two caveats. First, I'd venture that it depends on the constraints under which he can select the panel - did he inherit the panel from his predecessor? Can he remove them? For how long do they serve? Second, they're also constrained by who applies to the panel - that is, as I understand it, the mayor selects from the panel's recommendations, but the panel can only recommend from among those who apply. So if everyone who applied to the panel was a Bill Douglas or a Bill Brennan, it becomes less of a criticism of the panel that they proposed - or of Giuliani that he appointed - a Brennan rather than a Rehnquist.

This is why I prefer to work from primary sources where possible. Eliminates much of the guesswork. ;)

but I also assume the panel could easily recruit whatever candidates they wanted to "apply" and pick them, while ignoring whatever good candidates there were. which again puts the focus on Rudy's role in selecting the panel.