The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is expanding its campaign against Bush's extremist judicial nominations. The organization is launching Save Our Courts.Org, which will include grassroots training kits, media briefings, and a new web clearinghouse.

As the Supreme Court term comes to an end, there is growing speculation that one or more justices might retire. "LCCR is very concerned about the prospect of a new, extremist nominee to the Supreme Court, in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, judges who George W. Bush views as having the ideology and records he most favors. Further, even if there is no Supreme Court vacancy this year, our freedoms are already threatened by extremist federal judicial nominees at the circuit and district court levels," said LCCR Executive Director Wade Henderson.

The website will have:

• Information about how the public can find out more about nominees, as well as get involved in the campaign to Save Our Courts;

• State-by-state listing of events and efforts to educate voters as well as the media;

• Links to other organizations involved in efforts to oppose many of Bush’s judicial nominees

As Nancy Zirkin, LCCR Deputy Director, said,

"For many Americans, the federal judiciary is the first line of defense of our constitutional freedoms. The confirmation of lifetime right wing judges will dramatically reduce the civil rights of millions of Americans."

Now we have People for the American Way and LCCR and Save Our Courts. We urge everyone to participate in action campaigns and let your elected officials in Congress know Bush's picks are unacceptable. Think about the civil liberties you want your children to enjoy--and how many of them will be gone if Bush has his way and packs the Court. Let's stop him --and send him packing instead.

Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson is number two at the Justice Department under Ashcroft. As much as we've bashed Ashcroft at TalkLeft over the past year, we've never bashed Larry--you can read our early endorsement of him here.

So it is with great appreciation that we bring you news of his speech to the 9th Circuit judges today in Hawaii at the judge's judicial conference. He did everything but issue an apology for the ill-conceived Feeney Amendment which was tacked onto the Amber Alert bill and which reduced judicial discretion in sentencing to a practical nullity.

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Larry Thompson stopped just short of apologizing to federal judges from the Western states for the Bush administration's behind-the-scenes sponsorship of the controversial Feeney Amendment.

"I know the process was viewed as something less than aboveboard," the No. 2 man in the U.S. Justice Department said to several hundred judges and attorneys meeting on Kauai at the annual conference of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"We will not have a situation again where you, the judiciary, feel we have been less than open in our dealings," Thompson added.

Mr. Thompson has been mentioned as a possible replacement to retiring Supreme Court justices. That too would be okay in our book. He has been a defense attorney as well as a prosecutor. He understands constitutional rights, due process and fundamental fairness. He's certainly not a liberal, but he's as fair and honest as they get. Which is more than we can say for his boss and the Administration as a whole.

In a letter to MoveOn.org, Senator and Presidential hopeful John Kerry says that the Supreme Court is a major reason the Democrats need to take the White House away from Bush.

I am prepared to filibuster, if necessary, any Supreme Court nominee who would turn back the clock on a woman’s right to choose, on civil rights and individual liberties, and on the laws protecting workers and the environment.

Kerry has prepared a petition which he promises to deliver to Tom Daschle, Senate Democratic Leader and Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as their Republican counterparts

The criteria are basic: Any person who thinks it’s his or her job to push an extreme political agenda, rather than to interpret the law, should not be a Supreme Court Justice. Any person who thinks it’s his or her job to carry out the President’s political agenda, rather than to provide justice to ordinary Americans, should not be a Supreme Court Justice.

The Senate Rules Committee, by a vote of 10 to 0, voted today to limit filibusters . Notwithstanding that Democrats oppose the limit, none of the nine democrats on the committee attending the meeting. The matter will now go to a full floor vote.

A Senate committee with all its Democratic members absent voted to limit filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominees Tuesday, a move Republicans hope will usher future federal judges through the Senate faster, even if Democrats want to stop them.

The Rules Committee officially voted 10-0 for the measure, which would reduce the number of senators needed to force a vote on a judicial nominee with each successive vote until only a 51-member majority is needed.

....Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota had another commitment he had to attend to, and Democrats did not organize a boycott of the vote, spokeswoman Ranit Schmelzer said.

The nine democrats who missed the meeting are: "...Daschle, ranking Rules Committee Democrat Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Dianne Feinstein of California, Charles Schumer of New York, John Breaux of Louisiana, Mark Dayton of Minnesota and Richard Durbin of Illinois."

[link via How Appealing]

U.S. District Court Judge John S. Martin, Jr. (Southern District, New York) is leaving the bench after 16 years. Instead of going to senior status, he is returning to private practice. Many other federal judges are making the same decision. He explains why in an op-ed in today's New York Times, titled Let Judges Do Their Jobs:

For most of our history, our system of justice operated on the premise that justice in sentencing is best achieved by having a sentence imposed by a judge who, fully informed about the offense and the offender, has discretion to impose a sentence within the statutory limits. Although most judges and legal scholars recognize the need for discretion in sentencing, Congress has continually tried to limit it, initially through the adoption of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws.

Judge Martin notes that Congress has repeatedly tried to limit the sentencing discretion of judges--from the 1984 Sentencing Reform Act that resulted in federal sentencing guidelines, to its refusal to fix the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity, to the recent limitations on judicial discretion tacked onto the Amber Alert bill (the Feeney Amendment.)

Every sentence imposed affects a human life and, in most cases, the lives of several innocent family members who suffer as a result of a defendant's incarceration. For a judge to be deprived of the ability to consider all of the factors that go into formulating a just sentence is completely at odds with the sentencing philosophy that has been a hallmark of the American system of justice.

Judge Martin is absolutely correct in his charge that Congress repeatedly has shown contempt for the judiciary. It is with sadness that we report his final statement,

When I took my oath of office 13 years ago I never thought that I would leave the federal bench. While I might have stayed on despite the inadequate pay, I no longer want to be part of our unjust criminal justice system.

The Republicans have a plan to beat the filibuster of Bush judicial nominee Priscilla Owen. The L.A. Weekly article is enlightening in two respects: first, for another example of why Owen should not be moved up to the federal bench. Second, for the sneaky attack plan the Republicans likely will mount to get her in:

It works like this. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist attempts to gradually lower from 60 to 51 the votes needed to end a filibuster. That fails, because it requires 60 votes to change a Senate rule and the Republicans have only 50. Then Vice President Cheney rules on a constitutional point of order that 51 votes can end a filibuster of nominations. The Senate parliamentarian, appointed by Republicans, upholds his ruling. The filibuster blocking Priscilla Owen is ended. (And the road is cleared for the right-wing Supreme Court justices Bush will appoint later in his first term.) It would be quite an end to a Senate procedure in effect since George Washington held office.

Call your senators. Block this plan. Block Owen. TOLL-FREE CONGRESSIONAL SWITCHBOARD: 1-800-839-5276

President Bush shows his arrogance again. He not only declines the Dems' reasonable request to caucus on Supreme Court replacement nominees, he nominates Ex-Starr Aide Brent Kavanaugh for a seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

This is the same appeals court for which he nominated Miguel Estrada. Kavanaugh co-authored Starr's report on former President Clinton.

Kavanaugh's nomination would suggest Bush is spoiling for a fight with Senate Democrats while the administration's selection of judges is already a raw issue between the parties. The D.C. Circuit court is considered the second most powerful in the land. Kavanaugh, 38, was involved in many of the Clinton administration's legal controversies, and has played a key role in choosing Bush's judicial nominees.

Kavanugh is a partner at Kirk and Ellis, the same firm as Starr. And consider this: There have been two vacancies on that court since Clinton was President. "Republicans blocked Clinton from filling at least one of them by arguing that additional judges were not needed."

[thanks to Steve Smith of Smythe's Blog for the link]

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy has made a proposal to President Bush: consult democratic leaders before nominating a replacement for any retiring Supreme Court Justice. The President would be wise to agree--otherwise, as Leahy warns, there will be a political war.

"Though the landscape ahead is sown with the potential for controversy and contention over vacancies that may arise on the court, contention is avoidable, and consensus should be our goal," Mr. Leahy wrote on Wednesday. "I would hope your objective will not be to send the Senate nominees so polarizing that their confirmations are eked out in narrow margins."

Consultation with the minority party in the Senate would not be a first.

Mr. Leahy and Mr. Schumer noted that the chairman of the committee, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, had taken some credit for advising President Bill Clinton in his selection of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer for the Supreme Court.

Bush has not responded. Nor is he likely to. We hope his arrogance results in all Democrats getting so angry they demand their senators filibuster all his candidates, not just the most objectionable ones. This is a democracy, not a dictatorship, and we should not allow Bush unlimited rein to pack our courts with right wing ideologues.

Supreme Court Justices serve for decades. Anyone Bush appoints will be shaping the law not just for our lifetimes, but for those of our children. Make yourself heard on this issue. It's really that important. Demand Bush respond to Leahy's reasonable request for consultation with Democratic leaders and consensus-building prior to committing to a Supreme Court replacement Justice.

Call your senators --bookmark the number--1-800-839-5276

The AP is reporting that California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown (San Francisco) is a likely replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Who's Janice Rogers Brown?

In many ways, her line of thinking mirrors both the Bush administration and recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent. A Christian black woman from the segregated South, Brown supports limits on abortion rights and corporate liability, routinely upholds the death penalty and opposes affirmative action.

...she formulates opinions "in prayer and quiet study of the Bible." And in her commencement address, she criticized philosophers and scientists for trying to mold society "as if God did not exist."

....But when it comes to the death penalty, Brown routinely affirms death sentences. Two years ago, she wrote that "murderers do not deserve a fate better than that inflicted on their victims."

The White House, which is trying to expand the use of federal death penalty statutes, declined comment on rumors that its lawyers have interviewed Brown in the event a seat on the high court opens.

Howard Bashman of How Appealing, who probably gets more inside dirt on the issue of appellate judges than the rest of us combined, thinks Brown is a likely replacement.

Justice Brown does not have a friendly record to the criminally accused. consider this from 1996:

Judicial Nominee William Pryor came face to face with his past statements in his confirmation hearing Wednesday. While he admitted that his calling the Supreme Court Justices ""nine octogenarian lawyers" a mistake, he refused to abandon or distance himself from his other controversial views:

At yesterday's hearing, Pryor was asked several times about his past assertions that Roe v. Wade "is an abominable decision" and "the worst abomination of the history of constitutional law." He said he still believes that. "I believe that not only is the case unsupported by the text and structure of the Constitution, but it has led to a morally wrong result," he said. "It has led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children. That's my personal belief."

Call your Senators now....toll free...1-800-839-5276 and protest Pryor's confirmation. This man does not belong on the federal bench--especially when his appointment would be for life.

Here's a synopsis of the reasons, provided by Lisa English of Ruminate This:

• He's a Federalist Society ideologue.

• He has successfully fought against federal protections against the disabled and elderly.

• He has a long record as an opponent to Roe v. Wade and women's reproductive rights.

• He is opposed to the separation of church and state. According to People for the American Way, Pryor is "unfit" to be a judge. Dig this: "At a public rally on behalf of a judge who was sued for praying and displaying the 10 Commandments in court, Pryor announced, 'God has chosen, through his son Jesus Christ, this time and this place for all Christians...to save our country and save our courts.'"

• He has fought against civil rights legislation enforcement.

• He has fought against the Family Medical Leave Act.

• He has fought against environmental protections.

• He has fought against consumer and worker rights.

For more, go here and here.

[comments now closed]

New York Senator Charles Schumer is pushing Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Spector for a seat on the Supreme Court.

Schumer's suggested list of five candidates includes Specter and Michael Mukasey, a Ronald Reagan appointee now serving as chief judge of the federal court in Manhattan. He also recommends judges Anne Williams, Edward Prado and Stanley Marcus, all current federal appeals court judges nominated by Republican presidents.

Schumer's effort to block the nominations of lawyer Miguel Estrada and Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owens has angered Republicans, who have suggested redrafting Senate rules to prevent filibusters of judicial nominees.

Here is the full text of Schumer's letter to President Bush. [links via How Appealing]

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has written a letter to the Senate Judciary Committee opposing the nomination of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

June 11, 2003--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Appeals 'crucial only for Monday-morning quarterbacks'

Comments lead criminal defense bar to oppose nomination of Alabama AG to federal bench

Washington D.C.—The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has voiced its opposition to the nomination of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and ranking Democratic member Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), NACDL President Lawrence Goldman expressed concern that Pryor's stated views on the capital punishment system "bear directly on [his] ability to impartially consider direct and collateral appeals in death penalty cases."

For instance, according to the letter, Pryor, in response to the Judiciary Committee's follow-up questions after his testimony on the Innocence Protection Act, stated that appeals "are crucial only for Monday-morning quarterbacks who try to second-guess things and create issues that are probably not real in the first place."

The letter also cites Pryor's obliviousness to problems with Alabama's death penalty system, where more than one-fifth of defendants lack counsel for collateral review, and his disrespectful remarks directed at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The full text of the letter can be found here under News & Issues very shortly. People for the American Way has an extensive report on Pryor here. Pryor's confirmation hearing is set for Wednesday.