ConfirmThem

By AndrewHyman Posted in Fillibuster — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

WBUR in Boston had a lengthy radio program today on the filibuster situation, featuring interviews with Gail Chaddock who is a reporter with the Christian Science Monitor, Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker, Senators Byrd and Cornyn, Andrew McCarthy of National Review, and Perry Lange of PFAW. Chaddock was very inaccurate and biased, as I'll explain.

Cornyn emphasized that the vote this week on William Myers in the Judiciary Committee will be an important barometer of whether he'll be filibustered. Byrd, of course, did not see many similarities between what the GOP is now planning, as compared to his own actions as Majority Leader.

Gail Chaddock, who was billed as a "reporter" with the Monitor, gave an unflattering and incorrect portrayal of nominees Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen.

Chaddock criticized Brown's characterization (in one of Brown's speeches rather than in a judicial opinion) of the New Deal as a "socialist revolution," even though FDR himself might have found that a rather flattering and accurate characterization of social security and all the rest. Chaddock also said that Brown once labelled government in general as a "kleptocracy," but Brown actually had only used that term in a judicial opinion to criticize a particular action of the city of San Francisco, which Brown said conflicted with the letter of the Takings Clause of the Constitution (the case was San Remo Hotel v. San Francisco). It is true that Brown had previously used the term "kleptocracy" in a speech, but only to describe what government would be transformed into if it had no limitations. I personally am somewhat concerned that Brown might be tempted to enforce what she sees as the "spirit" of the law rather than the letter of the law, but she indicated in her Judiciary Committee hearing that she is against judges rewriting the Constitution, using it as a blank check, or inserting their own politics into it.

Ms. Chaddock was just as inaccurate with regard to Texas Supreme Court Justice Owen. Chaddock wrongly reported that the present Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, had once called Owen an "unconscionable judicial activist." What Gonzalez actually said, when he served on the Texas Supreme Court with Owen, was this:

Thus, to construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism.

Gonzalez was not calling the three dissenters in that case "unconscionable judicial activists," much less directing that charge at Justice Owen in particular. He was saying that if anyone (himself included) were to disregard the words of a statute, then that would be unconscionable judicial activism, and so it would be. The disagreement in that case was about the meaning of the words in a statute, and not about whether those words should be disregarded. Justice Owen explained in her Judiciary Committee hearing as follows:

He [Gonzalez] said if anybody, including himself, were to do that, would do that, that would be judicial activism, and I agree with that.

So, in this WBUR radio program, Gail Chaddock really did not present accurate information about California Supreme Court Justice Brown, or about Texas Supreme Court Justice Owen.

UPDATE: More confirmthem stuff about Owen here. More confirmthem stuff about Brown here.