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 June 30, 2009
Discrimination ruling shapes Sotomayor debate
“It’s just one more data point that she thinks it’s OK to make decisions as a judge based on your own personal preferences, gender, race, background, political agenda — instead of being a servant of the law,” said Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network.
Read more >>
June 30, 2009
Statement From Hispanic Leadership Fund Regarding Today’s Ricci Decision By The Supreme Court
Today the Hispanic Leadership Fund issued the following statement by its President, Mario H. Lopez, regarding the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano:
The Ricci case is a prime example of how working families are negatively impacted when judges reply on their personal preferences instead of strictly following the law. Hispanics, like all Americans, understand that replacing equality of opportunity with equality of results is not a recipe for justice. Today, the hard working Hispanic and white firefighters who passed their exam finally received true empathy—that which comes from being on the right side of the law.
Read more >>
 June 29, 2009
Ricci Decision Provides Rallying Point for Opposition
Wendy E. Long, counsel to the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, issued a statement saying that the firefighters "who protect the public safety and worked hard for their promotions did not deserve to become victims of racial quotas.''
Casting the decision as a repudiation of Sotomayor, Long added: "Usually, poor performance in any profession is not rewarded with the highest job offer in the entire profession."
Read more >>
June 29, 2009
Not Even One Justice Approved Sotomayor In Ricci Case
Statement from Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, on U.S. Supreme Court decision in Ricci v. DeStefano
"Frank Ricci finally got his day in court, despite the judging of Sonia Sotomayor, which all nine Justices of U.S. Supreme Court have now confirmed was in error.
"Usually, poor performance in any profession is not rewarded with the highest job offer in the entire profession.
"What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of a pilot error resulting in a bad plane crash. And now the pilot is being offered to fly Air Force One.
"The firefighters in New Haven who protect the public safety and worked hard for their promotions did not deserve to become victims of racial quotas, and the Supreme Court has now confirmed that they did not deserve to have their claims buried and thrown out by Judge Sotomayor."
Read the JCN Statement>>
 June 19, 2009
Senators Prep For Sotomayor With '10 In Mind
"I think every senator understands that a vote on a Supreme Court nominee and judicial issues has the potential to be a salient electoral issue," said Gary Marx, executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network. Already, lawmakers have begun shaping their responses to Sotomayor with future elections in mind.
Read more >>
June 18, 2009
Judge Sonia Sotomayor supplemental response to Senate questionnaire
JCN Letter to U.S. Senators on Judiciary Committee
Dear Senators:
Unfortunately, even with the additional submissions of June 15, 2009, Judge Sotomayor’s answers and document production to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire – and, accordingly, to the American people – are still incomplete.
Question 12(b) calls for Judge Sotomayor to disclose (and indeed, to provide four copies of) “any reports, memoranda, or policy statements you prepared or contributed to the preparation of on behalf of any bar association, committee, conference, or organization of which you were or are a member or in which you have participated . . . .” and to include any such documents produced by any working group of such organizations “even where you did not contribute to it.”
Read the JCN Letter >>
June 18, 2009
Meese Active in Opposition to Sotomayor
Ed Meese is at it again.
The Reagan-era attorney general, beloved by conservatives but long reviled by many liberals, is playing an important behind-the-scenes role in coordinating opposition to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
Read more >>
 Bench Memo, June 18, 2009
By Wendy Long
Belizean Grove: More Double Standards, More Double Talk
Thank goodness. Michael Kinsley hits the nail on the head this morning in the Washington Post about Sonia Sotomayor's membership in a discriminatory women's club:
If Obama had nominated a man who was a member of the Bohemian Grove, that would be a big issue and probably a fatal one. So how is it different if Sotomayor is a member of a club set up specifically to be the female equivalent? Rather than try to answer this question honestly, Sotomayor chose to make the preposterous argument that the Belizean Grove isn't a women's club. It's just that no men have ever applied for membership, you see. White clubs used to explain the absence of black members the same way. It's a laughable argument — a brazen whopper — and an insult to the citizenry and the Senate that must confirm her.
Read more >>
 June 16, 2009
By Kellyanne Conway and David McIntosh
We're All Originalists Now
Judge Sotomayor's nomination to the United States Supreme Court has generated a healthy debate over the role of judges. Some fuel was recently added to the fire when it was discovered that the White House sent Republican U.S. Senators a memo making the case that Sotomayor is a "[a] nonideological and restrained judge." According to the White House, Sotomayor rejects liberal judicial activism and the injection of personal views and experiences from the bench because she "wrote expressly about the importance of judicial restraint" during the confirmation process for her Second Circuit nomination.
Read more >>
Bench Memo, June 13, 2009
By Wendy Long
Noah Webster, Call your Office
In addition to the problems Matt has summarized (calling Thurgood Marshall "Thurmond," etc.) in Judge Sonia Sotomayor's writings and speeches, yet another is that she likes to talk about how she rejects common-sense definitions (indeed, any definitions) of words such as "merit" and "wise."
In a speech Sotomayor gave shortly after she became a federal court judge, she called herself "the perfect affirmative action baby": She had not done as well on standardized tests as her fellow Princeton and Yale Law students, and she asserted that such tests are "culturally biased." She also said, "I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means."
Read more >>
June 11, 2009
CO - State conservatives mobilize anti-Sotomayor effort
A conservative coalition has formed in Colorado to oppose President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the New York judge is a judicial activist who puts her "personal political agenda" above the rule of law.
"Sonia Sotomayor's statement that a 'wise Latina woman' would generally make better decisions because of 'the richness of her experiences' than a white male reveals the extent to which political and personal agendas have supplanted the rule of law in selecting nominees," former State Treasurer Mark Hillman said in a press release announcing the coalition. "Rule of law requires that laws be written, accessible, understandable and uniformly applied."
Read more >>
Bench Memo, June 10, 2009
By Wendy Long
The Biden Event
As Ed notes, press accounts of yesterday's White House Sotomayor Pep Rally with law-enforcement groups quote Vice President Joe Biden as saying "Judge Sotomayor has your back" and "throughout this nominating process [sic], I know you'll have her back." [I think Biden means the "confirmation" process; the "nomination" process was over when the President nominated Judge Sotomayor.]
Read more >>
 June 10, 2009
Joe Biden pushes envelope with Sonia Sotomayor praise
“It’s something that’s certainly unprecedented in the annals of White House activity on Supreme Court nominations,” Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network said in a conference call with reporters. She called the event a “sideshow” aimed at “misleading” the public about Sotomayor’s judicial record.
Read more >>
June 10, 2009
Sotomayor questionnaire has glaring omissions
Last week, soon after the White House delivered Judge Sotomayor's Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire in what it billed as record time, it became clear that Judge Sotomayor had failed to disclose an important memo she wrote for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) arguing against the death penalty in New York.
"It now appears that she failed to disclose more than just that memo: the questionnaire contains many glaring omissions that would have given the Senate and the American public a better idea of who she is and how she approaches the law," said JCN counsel Wendy E. Long. "These omissions lead to the inescapable conclusion that the White House wants to rush through her nomination without giving Senators and the American people full transparency about Sotomayor's record."
Read the Press Release >>
June 9, 2009
Sotomayor's confirmation hearings to begin July 13
"The purpose of this sideshow is to avoid facts in Sotomayor's actual record that indicate a soft-on-crime judge who twists the law, particularly law at the intersection of race and crime issues, and who avoids binding precedent as a lower court judge in ways that unnecessarily favor criminals and hinder law enforcement," Wendy E. Long, counsel of the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said in a memo.
Among the evidence Long cited to back up her claim was a position paper that Sotomayor signed in 1981 on behalf of a task force she chaired for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. The paper equated the death penalty with racism.
Read more >>
June 9, 2009
Sotomayor: No "Law-and-order" judge
TO: JCN MEMBERS AND INTERESTED PARTIES
FROM: WENDY E. LONG, COUNSEL
DATE: JUNE 9, 2009
RE: SOTOMAYOR: NO “LAW-AND-ORDER” JUDGE
Today's staged attempt by Vice President Biden and the Obama Administration to portray Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a "law-and-order" judge is an unprecedented political campaign by a White House for a Supreme Court nominee.
In the past, outside groups have held such events independent of the White House and were not controlled by the White House. Today's event looks like a county sheriff election rally. The purpose of this sideshow is to avoid facts in Sotomayor's actual record that indicate a soft-on-crime judge who twists the law, particularly law at the intersection of race and crime issues, and who avoids binding precedent as a lower court judge in ways that unnecessarily favor criminals and hinder law enforcement.
Read the JCN Memo >>
June 5, 2009
Conservative Group Criticizes Sotomayor on Death Penalty Memo
A conservative group is criticizing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for signing a 1981 memo that opposed the death penalty and said “capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society.’’
The Manassas, Va.-based Judicial Confirmation Network today said the document, written when Sotomayor was on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, offers a window into her thinking on the divisive issue of capital punishment.
Read more >>
 June 5, 2009
CONSERVATIVES RAMP UP JUDICIARY PRESSURE
Want a behind-the-scenes example of the kind of criticism conservatives are pushing with members of Congress about Sonia Sotomayor?
Conservative judicial activist Wendy Long, a former clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent a letter to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning calling into question Sotomayor’s answers to her judicial questionnaire.
Read more >>
June 5, 2009
Sotomayor Questionnaire Omits Memo on Death Penalty and Racism
JCN Letter to U.S. Senators on Judiciary Committee
Dear Senators:
A first read through Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s U.S. Senate questionnaire for her Supreme Court nomination raises more questions than it answers. It is already clear that she has omitted controversial material from her past in which she asserts that “capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society” and advocates public opposition to restoring the death penalty in New York state.
Whatever the immediate cause of this glaring omission, the ultimate blame should be placed squarely at the feet of the White House and its attempt to rush the Senate into an unprepared confirmation hearing that overlooks critical materials. The White House has had a recurring problem in failing adequately to vet nominees. Yet the Obama Administration yesterday touted Sotomayor’s questionnaire as having been returned to the Senate more quickly than those for the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.
Read the JCN Letter >>
Bench Memo, June 4, 2009
By Wendy Long
"I'm sure she would have restated it"
It emerged Wednesday that Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s infamous 2002 La Raza ‘wise Latina woman’ comment was not just inartful, off the cuff, or badly stated.
Sotomayor made an almost identical comment — indeed, an almost identical entire speech — in 1994 in Puerto Rico at the National Conference of Law Reviews in a speech entitled “Women in the Judiciary.”
Read more >>
Bench Memo, June 4, 2009
By Wendy Long
White House Counsel's Office Fiction Piece
Late Tuesday, it came to light that the White House Counsel’s office had produced a memo and given it to Republican Senators as Judge Sonia Sotomayor made her first round of courtesy calls in the Senate.
The novella, entitled “Sonia Sotomayor: A Nonideological and Restrained Judge,” tried to spin Judge Sotomayor as a proponent of judicial restraint: essentially, to present her as another Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito.
The memo is laughable. Even Judge Sotomayor’s liberal-interest-group supporters obviously don’t take it seriously or they would be shutting down the White House switchboard with calls of outrage. It reflects the growing arrogance of a White House that thinks it can say anything it wants, even if the statements bear no relation to the facts. The Obama White House seems to think it can fool all of the people, all of the time.
Read more >>
June 3, 2009
JCN Open Memo
TO: JCN Members and Interested Parties
FROM: Wendy E. Long, JCN Counsel
RE: White House Fiction Piece on Sonia Sotomayor
Late yesterday, it came to light that the White House Counsel's office had produced a memo and given it to Republican Senators as Judge Sonia Sotomayor made her first round of courtesy calls in the Senate.
The novella, entitled "Sonia Sotomayor: A Nonideological and Restrained Judge," tried to spin Judge Sotomayor as a proponent of judicial restraint: essentially, to present her as another Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito.
The memo is laughable. Even Judge Sotomayor's liberal interest group supporters obviously don't take it seriously or they would be shutting down the White House switchboard with calls of outrage. It reflects the growing arrogance of a White House that thinks it can say anything it wants, even if the statements bear no relation to the facts. The Obama White House seems to think it can fool all of the people, all of the time.
Read the JCN Memo >>
June 3, 2009
Statement by Wendy Long, Counsel, Judicial Confirmation Network, regarding White House Memo to Senators Meeting with SCOTUS Nominee Sonia Sotomayor:
This is the biggest piece of fiction writing I have seen. It bears no resemblance to reality. I have a hard time believing anyone in the GOP would buy this fantasy. The President voted against his own talking points when he voted against Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito as a Senator. He tried to block this philosophy by filibuster. And now he is serving them up to the U.S. Senate? They, of course, do not remotely describe the Obama nominee. The White House obviously has made a mistake, passing out the leftover talking points that must have been in the West Wing about Cheif Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.
Read the JCN Statement>>
June 2, 2009
JCN Senate Letter
Over the next several weeks, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will be making her courtesy visits to you and your colleagues. At the same time, the Judiciary Committee will be entering into the phase of the confirmation process where her body of judicial decisions and written opinions begin to be evaluated. Based on what the White House has said, it is a voluminous appellate record--participation in over 3,000 panels and nearly 400 written opinions.
Read entire Senate Letter >>
Download PDF Document Here
 June 2, 2009
Obama - filibuster OK then, but not now
Gary Marx, executive director of The Judicial Confirmation Network, says President Obama is playing with two different sets of standards for judicial nominees.
“He followed the radical left-wing in opposing Justice Alito for no other reason than he disagreed with his judicial philosophy—one of judicial restraint,” Marx explains. “President Obama wanted a judicial activist on the Supreme Court, and Justice Alito did not fit that mold.
“Our hope is that none of the senators are going to follow President Obama’s example with these dilatory-type of tactics,” he continues. “We want them to have a full and fair debate, an extensive debate.”
Read more >>
May 31, 2009
JCN Open Memo
TO: JCN Members and Interested Parties
FROM: Wendy E. Long, JCN Counsel
RE: Sonia Sotomayor and Legal Realism
In recent days, the White House has tried to explain away a number of public statements by Judge Sotomayor suggesting that her view of the role of the Court in our society is a fairly radical one, inconsistent with the "rule of law" as we understand it.
The "rule of law" is a principle of American justice, going back to the most ancient roots of Western law. It holds that the rules of a society are definite and knowable by its citizens, and that those rules are applied impartially by judges, who are servants of the law, but are not above it. In other words, the law, and not the judge, makes the rules. This is what Chief Justice John Roberts referred to in his confirmation proceedings when he described himself as a "servant of the law."
Read More >>
May 31, 2009
New line of attack in Supreme Court fight
And Wendy Long, counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network, a leading anti-Sotomayor outfit, has also seized on Sotomayor’s affiliation with Legal Realism.
In an email to POLITICO, Long asserted that “because they believe that the law is essentially indeterminate and unknowable by ordinary citizens, Frank and Sotomayor and the Legal Realist School think that law is only what judges say it is.”
That approach “is destructive of self-government. It is the mode of judging that came to prominence in the 20th century that sees the courts as engines of legal, social, and political change,” asserted Long. “When judges drive such change, based not on the written Constitution and laws enacted by the people, judges use their own sense of personal ‘justice,’ based on their own experiences, personal views, feelings, and backgrounds. This is something both Jerome Frank and Sonya Sotomayor have embraced, and it is what in recent years has come to be referred to as ‘judicial activism.’”
Read more >>
 May 30, 2009
Sotomayor's Focus on Race Issues May Be Hurdle
Gary Marx, executive director of the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said he saw a playbook for the campaign against Judge Sotomayor in the successful attacks on Lani Guinier, whose 1993 nomination to a top Justice Department post was withdrawn after an outcry over her writings arguing for alternative voting systems intended to better represent minorities.
“We will see ‘racial quotas’ become a much bigger issue than they might have been had another nominee been brought forward,” Mr. Marx said.
“Her nomination and the Ricci case have brought racial quotas back as a national issue,” said Mr. Marx of the Judicial Confirmation Network.
Read more >>
May 30, 2009
GOP divided over tone of Sotomayor debate
Gary Marx, the executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network, said the divisions were more about style and tone than substance. He said conservatives agree that Sotomayor is a “judicial activist” — someone who puts her own views above the law — regardless of how they express themselves.
“Our ads are focused on highlighting her published writing and her own words, making sure those are raised because we feel they speak to the issue of judicial activism,” Marx said. “We can have a healthy debate when we focus on her own writings, her published writings and spoken words.”
Read more >>
May 29, 2009
By Wendy Long
The Real Sotomayor Issue
The Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination got a quick start out of the gate, focusing debate about something very important: How are judges supposed to decide cases? Are they, as Judge Sotomayor says, supposed to rule based upon identity politics, using their own personal views and biases in making decisions? Or is it to put aside all personal experiences and policy desires and apply the Constitution and laws as written?
Read more >>
May 28, 2009
Judicial Confirmation Network vs. White House
The Judicial Confirmation Network pushed back today after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, downplayed Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's comments in 2005 at Duke University about courts of appeal judges making policy from the bench. Gibbs said critics were taking Sotomayor's words "out of context."
At Duke, Sotomayor said: "...Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know ... I know this is on tape and I should never say that, because we don't make law, I know.... I'm not promoting it, and I'm not advocating it.... Having said that, the Court of Appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating."
See the videos of Sotomayor and Gibbs here.
Wendy Long, the network's legal counsel responded:
"An important controversy and debate continues to brew over Judge Sotomayor's comments at Duke University in which she said that appellate courts "make policy," and in her published words tucked away in law review articles. The White House continues to say that her words caught on tape were taken out of context. It appears that whenever the press or other critics point out troubling or radical statements made by Judge Sotomayor that clearly reveal her approach to judging, the White House spin machine is dizzying itself trying to figure out how best to communicate what it is that Judge Sotomayor really meant when she uttered the appellate "courts make policy" comment or her published writings saying a "Latina woman would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who has not lived that life."
"President Obama promised the American people a transparent presidency. Indeed, this White House's communications machine has been vigilant in posting the President's policy agenda online and keeping folks up to speed saying they want to create dialogue and discussion. In that spirit, we are calling on White House Press Secretary Gibbs to post the Duke University video on The White House web site and let the American people judge her comments... If Mr. Gibbs does not have time to post this video, he is welcome to link to it and other Sotomayor comments at www.aboutsoniasotomayor.com"
Read more >>
May 28, 2009
JCN CALLS ON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY GIBBS TO POST DUKE VIDEO ON WHITE HOUSE WEB SITE AND LET AMERICAN PEOPLE JUDGE
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' comments yesterday that "We can all move past YouTube snippets and half sentences and actually look at the honest-to-God record" raise an important question for Mr. Gibbs. The Duke University comments by Judge Sotomayor are quite clear and unequivocal. Is Mr. Gibbs suggesting that Judge Sotomayor was lying in the tape or that she really didn't mean it?
Read the JCN Statement>>
May 28, 2009
WHITE HOUSE, SCHUMER MISLEADING PUBLIC AND MEDIA OVER SOTOMAYOR LIBERAL ACTIVISM—VETTING PROCESS FAILED
Statement by Wendy Long, Chief Counsel, Judicial Confirmation Network:
“Comments yesterday by the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and today by Senator Chuck Schumer, that statements made at Duke University by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in which she said appellate courts should ‘make policy’ were taken out of context are purposely misleading and outright misinformation designed to walk back an obvious vetting problem this White House has become known for. If Mr. Gibbs or Senator Schumer were to read other law review articles written by Judge Sotomayor, her own published word, it is clear and unequivocal that Judge Sotomayor has a long track record of advocating for using courts to make policy and laws. It is obvious that the reason the White House has churned up its spin machine on this is because countless polls consistently show that the American people to do not support judges making policy or law from the bench. The American people have spoken loudly and often on this subject, they want judges who interpret law as made through the people and their elected representatives, not through judges imposing their personal political views from the bench as Judge Sotomayor has consistently advocated.”
Read the JCN Statement>>
May 27, 2009
Interest Groups Prepare to Battle on Sotomayor
“It is a chance to show the American people that we no longer have ‘both ways Barack,’” said Gary Marx, of the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network. “You can’t be a compromiser and a pragmatist and at the same time be somebody who is going to pass every Planned Parenthood litmus test, and this nominee shows he has followed the litmus test of the left.”
Read more >>
May 26, 2009
JCN Open Memo
TO: JCN Members and Interested Parties
FROM: Wendy Long, Counsel to Judicial Confirmation Network
RE: Obama Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor
-
President Obama has threatened to nominate liberal judicial activists who will indulge their left-wing policy preferences instead of neutrally applying the law. In selecting Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee, President Obama has carried out his threat.
- Judge Sotomayor will allow her feelings and personal politics to stand in the way of basic fairness. In a recent case, Ricci v. DeStefano, Sotomayor sided with a city that used racially discriminatory practices to deny promotions to firefighters. The percuriam opinion Sotomayor joined went so far out of its way to bury the firefighters' important claims of unfair treatment that her colleague, Judge Jose Cabranes, a Clinton appointee, chastised her.
Read More >>
May 26, 2009
JCN Statement on nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court
Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, on nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court:
“Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.
“She reads racial preferences and quotas into the Constitution, even to the point of dishonoring those who preserve our public safety. On September 11, America saw firsthand the vital role of America’s firefighters in protecting our citizens. They put their lives on the line for her and the other citizens of New York and the nation. But Judge Sotomayor would sacrifice their claims to fair treatment in employment promotions to racial preferences and quotas. The Supreme Court is now reviewing that decision.
“She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.”
Read the JCN Statement>>
 May 25, 2009
Business and the Supreme Court
Soon after David Souter announced his plans to retire from the Supreme Court, pundits began predicting that it would have little impact on the court’s future. According to ABC News, an Obama replacement “would be unlikely to tip the balance of the court.” The Los Angeles Times echoed, “Souter’s retirement is not likely to change the court’s ideological balance.”
Can we be so sure? Justice Souter frequently signed onto 5-4 majority opinions ensuring the fair, just and efficient resolution of legal disputes for entrepreneurs and business owners. In the areas of tort liability, antitrust law, class actions, shareholder liability and labor standards, Justice Souter has what many lawyers describe as a moderate or restrained record—one which plaintiffs lawyers, unions and antimarket ideologues would hope to avoid in a replacement.
Read more >>
Bench Memo, May 21, 2009
By Wendy Long
The Myth of Kagan and the Conservatives
President Obama is likely focusing on three frontrunners for the Supreme Court: Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Judge Diane Wood, and Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
All three are hard left committed liberal activists. This poses a problem for the White House. A CNN poll this week shows that 72% of Americans want Obama to pick a moderate or a conservative for the Supreme Court (37% want a "moderate" for the Court and 35% want someone "very conservative" or "somewhat conservative"). Only 27% of Americans think Obama should nominate someone who is "very liberal" or "somewhat liberal" for the Supreme Court.
Read more >>
May 21, 2009
JCN's web ads highlighted on Fox News
 May 19, 2009
New CNN Poll: 72% of Americans Want Moderate or Conservative for the Supreme Court
The Boston Globe reports that CNN released a poll yesterday showing that:
-37% of Americans think Obama should nominate someone who is a moderate for the Supreme Court.
-35% of Americans think Obama should nominate someone who is very or somewhat conservative for the Supreme Court.
-Therefore, 72% of Americans want Obama to pick a moderate or a conservative for the Supreme Court
-Only 27% of Americans think Obama should nominate someone who is very or somewhat liberal for the Supreme Court.
Read more >>
May 19, 2009
Conservatives Take Fight Against Potential Court Nominees to the Web
"We need to do this because the White House really has the bully pulpit,'' Long said. "They have control of Congress, control of the Senate Judiciary Committee and many outlets are friendly to them in the mainstream media. The American people, if we don't do things like this, are really only getting half the story.''
Read more >>
May 18, 2009
RECORDS OF KAGAN, WOOD AND SOTOMAYOR EXPOSED IN NEW JCN AD CAMPAIGN
The Judicial Confirmation Network (www.judicialnetwork.com) today launched a series of ads that expose the records of President Obama's reported frontrunners for the Supreme Court nomination to replace Justice Souter. The ads are available at www.obamasfrontrunners.com.
"With the bully pulpit of the Presidency, Congress, and the media under the control of liberals, the American people are getting a giant deception about the the liberal judicial activist philosophy of nominees floated as frontrunners," said Wendy Long. "They are not moderates or centrists; they hard-left activists who would decide cases based on their feelings and their personal political agendas." Read the Press Release >>
 May 18, 2009
Supreme Court Nominee Debate Defined by Conservatives
Conservative judicial experts believe the empathy argument is a political winner for Republicans, and they have shaped their talking points accordingly. Gary Marx, executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network, a conservative organization that promotes "the confirmation of highly qualified individuals to the Supreme Court of the United States," believes that judicial empathy and adherence to the text of the Constitution are incompatible. Read more >>
May 13, 2009
Obama's court pick to be shaped by his experience
"This decision will clearly show whether this is the Barack Obama of the campaign trail who's a modern trans-partisan pragmatist, or whether he is following the litmus-test standard of a whole host of radical judicial groups," said Gary Marx, executive director of the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network. Read more >>
May 12, 2009
Wendy Long on ABC News
May 11, 2009
JCN Open Memo
TO:CONSERVATIVE LEADERS & ACTIVISTS
FROM:GARY MARX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR , JUDICIAL CONFIRMATION NETWORK
RE: OBAMA’S OWN WORDS
Affirmative action? Abortion? Interstate Commerce?
President Obama’s own words show he believes those specific issues and presumably many more should be decided based on "what is in a judge’s heart." He has repeatedly stated that judges should use their own personal feelings – "empathy" – when deciding cases. President Obama’s own words from his floor statement announcing his vote against Chief Justice John Roberts’ confirmation tell the story … which even the New York Times had to tell. Check out these excerpts from the NYT story which you can read in its entirety below. Read more >>
May 5, 2009
JCN Open Memo
TO:CONSERVATIVE LEADERS & ACTIVISTS
FROM:GARY MARX & WENDY E. LONG , JUDICIAL CONFIRMATION NETWORK
RE:TOP OBAMA CANDIDATES FOR SUPREME COURT VACANCY
Reports in Washington today suggest that the Obama Administration and some in the U.S. Senate are looking to rush through confirmation of the new Supreme Court Justice to replace outgoing Justice David Souter.
While we don’t know for sure the veracity of these reports, Senator Hatch (who spoke with the President yesterday) ventured to guess that the White House might name a Supreme Court nominee within a week. And from what we have seen so far, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy seems eager to ram through Obama judicial nominees without giving Senators a proper chance to evaluate the nominee’s record and assess whether she will be able to uphold her statutory judicial oath of office to dispense justice impartially, according to the law, instead of tilting the law based on her own personal views and feelings, as the President has said he wants.
While President Obama has said he intends to nominate a moderate or a pragmatist, not a liberal activist, it is advisable to take that statement with a grain of salt. Remember, he thinks that the current Supreme Court – the majority of which is a liberal judicial activist Court – is "right-wing" or "conservative." If that is his frame of reference ("liberal judicial activist" equals "right-wing"), then his definition of "moderate" may be equally skewed.
Moreover, with the vetting record of this White House and its willingness to appoint to high government posts nominees who have cheated on their taxes and have other ethical problems, any rush to appoint a Supreme Court Justice with lightning speed is all the more unseemly. And it certainly violates the Obama promises of transparency and accountability. We need a fair, orderly process to educate Americans about the potential nominees that the Obama-Leahy machine seems determined to rush through the confirmation process.
Here are three women widely thought to be front-runners for this Supreme Court seat. They are not moderates. They are not pragmatists. They are hard-left liberal judicial activists.
Read more >>
 May 5, 2009
GOP Preparing for Court Fight
Republicans are also planning to coordinate closely with outside activist groups like the Judicial Confirmation Network.
Wendy Long, counsel to the conservative group, said dozens of activists from across the country took part in an early morning conference call Friday to map out a plan. Noting that judicial nominations have long been a top priority for conservatives, she said activists were planning to coordinate on "batting down some of his most extreme candidates" before the president makes his selection. Read more >>
 May 4, 2009
LONG: Opening of a sorry chapter
Supreme Court Justice David Souter has decided to hang up his robe and go back to his native New Hampshire, handing President Obama his first Supreme Court nomination.
The president's remarks yesterday confirmed what Americans who care about the court and the Constitution have been dreading since the campaign. Mr. Obama will make Supreme Court history, all right. He will become the first president in American history to make lawlessness an explicit standard for Supreme Court justices. Read more >>
 May 4, 2009
Obama Will Try to Remake the Supreme Court
Republicans learned a hard lesson during the confirmation process of both Robert Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas. The Judicial Confirmation Network (JCN) was formed in 2004 to ensure judicial nominees of then President George W. Bush would get a fair hearing in the Senate and that the American public would get the truth about the nominees.
Wendy Long, general counsel to the JCN and a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Thomas sat down with HUMAN EVENTS to discuss the current makeup of the court and some of the likely Obama candidates to replace Justice David Souter, who has announced his retirement in June.
Read more >>
May 2, 2009
Wendy Long on Fox News
Click here to watch Wendy Long on Fox News!
May 1, 2009
Judicial Confirmation Network in the Press
May 1, 2009
Obama’s First Supreme Court Nomination
Wendy Long, JCN Chief Counsel: As expected, Justice Souter is retiring, giving President Obama his first Supreme Court nomination just 3 months into his presidency.
Keep in mind: 1. The current Supreme Court is a liberal, judicial activist court.
Obama could make it even more of a far-left judicial activist court, for a long time to come, if he appoints radicals like Diane Wood, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. A new Justice in this mold would just entrench a bad majority for a long time.
2. If Obama holds to his campaign promise to appoint a Justice who rules based on her own "deepest values" and what’s in her own "heart"—instead of what is in the Constitution and laws—he will be the first American
President who has made lawlessness an explicit standard for Supreme Court Justices.
3. The President and Senators need to be careful about, respectively, nominating and appointing a hard-left judicial activist. Americans who elected Obama may have done so out of fear for the economy or other reasons, but they did not elect him because they share his views on judges. By a margin of more and 3 to 1, Americans want Supreme Court Justices who will practice judicial restraint and follow the law, not jurists who will indulge their own personal views and experiences in deciding cases.
4. As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has pointed out, a judge who decides cases based on her personal and political views, instead of what the law says, will have a hard time fulfilling her oath to dispense justice impartially. Senators have a constitutional duty to rigirously scrutinize the nominee on this score, and vote "no" if the nominee cannot establish
that she will follow the law, rather than her own values and beliefs, as the President has suggested.
May 1, 2009
Supreme Court Justice David Souter plans to retire
Conservatives fired warning shots of the possible battle to come. Wendy Long of the Virginia-based Judicial Confirmation Network, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, said in a statement: "The current Supreme Court is a liberal, judicial activist court. … If Obama holds to his campaign promise to appoint a Justice who rules based on her own ‘deepest values’ and what's in her own ‘heart’ – instead of what is in the Constitution and laws — he will be the first American President who has made lawlessness an explicit standard for Supreme Court Justices." Read more >>
April 30, 2009
Obama's Judges Await Specter
Unable as a Conference to carry out a filibuster in the wake of Sen. Arlen Specter's (Pa.) party switch, Senate Republicans are eyeing the blue slip as the way to maintain their influence over President Barack Obama's judicial nominations... Read more >>
 April 29, 2009
Hearings Continue on Controversial Judge
"At the end of the day, I think there are some senators who believe the true role of the judge is not to be an activist,” Marx told CBN News. “A judge should not to impose their own personal polices from the bench and that’s going to moderate some of those judges and hopefully help Obama follow though on his promise to be a trans-partisan leader. This initial nomination of Judge David Hamilton does not bode well though." Read more >>
April 28, 2009
JCN Statement on Sen. Specter Switch
Wendy Long, counsel, Judicial Confirmation Network: "As chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Specter deserves praise for recognizing the virtues of judicial restraint in voting to confirm Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, as well as supporting appellate court nominees who practice judicial restraint. We hope he will continue to support judges in that mold."
 April 22, 2009
Senior Justice Dept. nominee faces GOP roadblock in Senate
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's nomination of an Indiana University law professor to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel is meeting stiff resistance in the Senate, stalled for a month by Republicans who say she's a polarizing figure because she aggressively criticized the Bush administration's legal rationale on torturing terrorism suspects and radical in her views on abortion rights..
... Read more >>
Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2009
The ABA's BFF: Why Obama wants lawyers to rate judges
President Obama announced recently that he will restore the American Bar Association to pre-eminence in federal judicial vetting -- a privilege it lost under President Bush. And no wonder. A study out of three universities in Georgia says the ABA's vetting is predisposed toward more generous ratings of liberal nominees than of conservatives.
... Read more >>
National Journal, April 17, 2009
Santorum, GOP Lawyers Spar Over Filibuster
"This is the first time in history that a president has put forth as his gold standard for judicial nominees the very definition of judicial activism," Long said.
Speaking at a Republican National Lawyers Association conference at the National Press Club, Santorum insisted to a skeptical audience that filibustering judicial nominees would be counterproductive. Two questioners wondered why Republicans should show restraint after Democrats blocked several of President Bush's nominees. "We will lose every single filibuster attempt, even if it's the worst judge in the world. We don't have the votes," Santorum rejoined. "You don't pull out a gun if everyone in the room knows it's not loaded." Read more >>
NRO, April 16, 2009
What's the Matter with Empathy?
During the presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama said that "the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges" is whether they have "the heart, the empathy," for certain groups of people. Those worthy of empathy, according to candidate Obama... Read more >>
Law.com, April 13, 2009
Cohen Enforces Leahy's Judiciary Agenda
The hearing on April 1 for President Barack Obama's first appellate court nominee barely began before Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) started grousing that Republicans hadn't been given enough time to prepare. He and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) had earlier traded letters on the timing, and now Specter wanted a letter from the Republicans admitted to the committee's official record. Read more >>
Newsmax, April 6, 2009
Obama Nominee Tainted by Partisanship
President Obama has every right to appoint government officials who are even more liberal than he is. As he famously told Republican lawmakers who were skeptical of his stimulus plan, "I won." But Obama has an obligation to the American people to appoint people who are qualified for the job. Read more >>
March 19, 2009
JCN CALLS SIGNIFICANT "NO" VOTE ON KAGAN A VICTORY; PRAISES LEADERSHIP OF SENATOR SPECTER
Wendy E. Long, counsel to The Judicial Confirmation Network, today made the following statement on the United States Senate vote, 61 31, on the controversial nomination of Elena Kagan to be the Obama Administration's Solicitor General:...Read the Press Release >>
NRO Bench Memo, Wendy Long, March 19, 2009
Leadership by Senator Specter: No on Kagan
Senator Arlen Specter, Ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has just announced that he will vote NAY on the nomination of Elena Kagan to be solicitor general of the United States.
The vote has not yet occured (it will sometime in next six hours as I understand), but given Senator Specter's intellect, legal analytical ability, and his reputation for bipartisanship and fairness, this is very significant and it represents strong leadership that other senators would do well to examine and follow.
March 18, 2009
Obama Sticking With Lawless Empathy Standard
In defending the first Obama federal appellate court pick yesterday at the White House press briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs cleared up any doubt as to whether the President was sticking with the lawless standard for evaluating judicial nominees that he articulated on the campaign trail (and that he invoked as a Senator to filibuster Justice Alito and vote against Chief Justice Roberts). Read the Statement >>
March 18, 2009
Statement from Wendy Long
When he ran for President, Obama said he'd set new and higher standards for bipartisanship in many things, including judicial nominations.
Read the Statement >>
IndyStar.com, March 18, 2009
Indiana judge nominated for U.S. Court of Appeals
President Barack Obama picked an Indiana federal judge for his first judicial nomination Tuesday, but first he locked in the support of Indiana's Democratic and Republican senators....
Read more
The Blog of LegalTimes, March 17, 2009
White House Reiterates Value of Empathy in Judges
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declined an offer today to characterize the Obama administrationís first judicial nominee. But Gibbs said at his daily press briefing that the president is standing by his controversial pledge to consider the breadth of a nomineeís background...
Read more
NRO Bench Memos, March 17, 2009
Wendy Long on NRO
Hamilton Does Not Equal Bipartisanship
When he ran for President, Obama said he'd set new and higher standards for bipartisanship in many things, including judicial nominations. Read more
Obama's First Appellate Court Nominee: Hard Left
When he ran for President, Obama said he'd set new and higher standards for bipartisanship in many things, including judicial nominations. Read more
McClatchy, March 17, 2009
Obama judicial pick will test pledge to end confirmation wars
President Barack Obama held out his first judicial nominee on Tuesday as evidence that he wants to end the political sniping over judges that marked much of the past eight years....
Read more
March 17, 2009
OBAMA'S FIRST APPELLATE COURT NOMINEE DAVID HAMILTON: ACLU ACTIVIST IS NO "MODERATE"
The Judicial Confirmation Network today reacted to President Obama's reported plans to make his first nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals this week, Judge David Hamilton from Indiana.
Read the Press Release >>
Human Events, March 13, 2009
GOP Senate Whip Failed to Show Leadership on Obama Nominees
Mark Twain once said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Thereís a corollary to that quote in the political context: "Never let policy interfere with your politics." The corollary has no known author because too many senators claim to have made it up. Last week, however, Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl claimed at least partial ownership of the quote when he voted in favor of Elena Kaganís nomination for Solicitor General....
Read more
Politico, Rick Santorum, March 11, 2009
Santorum alarmed by 'zealot' nominees
Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique lost his license to practice medicine last month. A staffer at the doctorís Florida clinic killed and disposed of a baby girl. The baby was delivered alive after Renelique arrived too late to perform the late-term abortion. This barbarism has properly appalled people of conscience on both sides of the abortion issue and should remind senators of the need to consider whether President Barack Obamaís political nominees -- most especially Department of Justice nominee Dawn Johnsen -- will uphold the minimal legal protections for human life....
Read more
New York Times, March 10, 2009
Obamaís Court Nominees Are Focus of Speculation
President Obama will soon begin naming a small stream of nominees to the federal appeals courts, administration officials said, a step that will provide the first signs of how much he intends to impose any ideological stamp on the nationís judiciary....
Read more
National Review Bench Memo, Ed Whelan, March 9, 2009
Another Reckless NY Times Editorial
Todayís New York Times has a house editorial that wildly distorts the letter that Senate Republicans sent to President Obama last week urging consultation on judicial nominees. ...
Read more
LA Times, March 8, 2009
Wendy Long Comments in L.A. Times
..."The letter is a remarkable show of strength and resolve on the matter of judges. I was encouraged that all 41 [GOP] senators signed it," said Wendy E. Long, counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network. "This says they are ready to give intense scrutiny when extreme folks are being nominated."...
Read more
March 2, 2009
JCN PRAISES GOP SENATORS' LETTER TO OBAMA ON JUDGES
The Judicial Confirmation Network praised U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and all 41 Republican United States Senators for the letter they sent today to President Barack Obama setting forth some baseline procedures and standards on judicial nominees.
Read the Press Release >>
See Also:
Republicans: How About Re-Nominating Peter Keisler?
Roll Call, Wendy Long, March 2009
JCN Letter Published on Capitol Hill
In his Feb. 9th Guest Observer, "GOP Payback on Court Nominees is Hard to Justify," Glenn Sugameli of Earthjustice misstated the record about why Democrats opposed the Bush judicial nominees . . .
Read the letter here
David W. Ogden, Nominee, Deputy Attorney General
 Information
- Represented, pro bono, the defendant in Roper v. Simmons, the case in which the United States Supreme Court found that the death penalty for minor defendants violated the Eighth Amendment.
- Filed an Amicus Brief in United States v. American Library Association, in which he argued against pornography-blocking internet filters at public libraries.
- Brief for the American Psychological Association as Amici Curiae Supporting Respondents, Casey v. Planned Parenthood of S.E. Pennsylvania, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) (No. 91-902).
- ì[E]mpirical research does not support the contention that abortion is a significant risk factor for detrimental psychological effects.î (p. 4).
- ìAbortion rarely causes or exacerbates psychological or emotional problems. When women do experience regret, depression, or guilt, such feelings are mild and diminish rapidly without adversely affecting general functioning.î (p. 21).
- Brief for the American Psychological Association et al. as Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioners, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) (No. 02-102).
- ì[H]omosexuality is a normal form of human sexuality.î (p. 1).
- ìOver the past two decades, research about the children of gay parents has yielded the consistent conclusion that these children demonstrate no deficits in intellectual development, social adjustment, or psychological well-being as compared to children of heterosexual parents.î (p. 20).
- David W. Ogden, op-ed in Legal Times, July 21, 1986 (discussing Bowers v. Hartwick), quoted in Senate Judiciary Committee, ìHearing on the Nominations of David W. Ogden and Robert Raben,î Aug. 4, 1993.
- ìConstitutional interpretation cannot be limited to ascertain the way a particular law would have been viewed by the Framers. While constitutional principles do not change, the society and individuals in whom they are applied do, and our knowledge about that society and those individuals improves with time.î
Backgrounders
- United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Deputy Attorney General-David W. Ogden
- Fidelis, Research Brief on David W. Ogden, Nominee for Deputy Attorney General
- American Center for Law and Justice Memos
- The Heritage Foundation, Question David Ogden
- The Heritage Foundation, Deputy Attorney General Nominee David Ogden: Questions on Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution
- The Heritage Foundation, Deputy AG Nominee Should be Questioned on Importing International Law
- Family Research Council, Change Watch Backgrounder: David Ogden
- National Review Online, Bench Memos, DAG Nominee David Ogden and Knox v. United States-Part 1
- National Review Online, Bench Memos, DAG Nominee David Ogden and Knox v. United States-Part 2
The Wall
Elena Kagan, Nominee, Solicitor General
Information
- Emailed entire Harvard Law School community, stating that allowing military recruiters on campus caused her ìdeep distressî and that she ìabhor[ed] the militaryís discriminatory recruitment policy.î
- Calls the Solomon Amendment a ìprofound wrong ñ a moral injustice of the first order.î
- Elena Kagan, Regulation of Hate Speech and Pornography After R.A.V., 60 U. Chi. L. Rev. 873, 878 (1993).
- ìThis evolution of obscenity law recently has occurred in CanadaÖEfforts to redefine the obscenity category in this manneróa redefinition that, consistent with much First Amendment theory, would tend to divorce speech restrictions from simple feelings of offenseóshould proceed in the United States as well.î (pp. 895-96).
- ìIn accord with this reasoning, communities should be able not only to impose enhanced criminal sanctions on the perpetrators of hate crimes, but also to provide special tort-based or other civil remedies for their victims.î (p. 886).
- Elena Kagan, Confirmation Messes, Old and New, 62 U. Chi. L. Rev. 919 (1995).
- ìThe problem is not that the Bork hearings have set a pattern for all others; the problem is that they have not.î (p. 942).
- Calls Justice Thomas's ìobjective qualificationsî for the Supreme Court weak.
Backgrounders
- United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Solicitor General-Elena Kagan
- American Center for Law and Justice Memos
- Family Research Council, Change Watch Backgrounder: Elena Kagan
- National Review Online, Bench Memos, Obama's SG Pick Elena Kagan
- National Review Online, Bench Memos, Obama's SG Pick Elena Kagan-Part 2
- National Review Online, Bench Memos, Obama's SG Pick Elena Kagan-Part 3
- National Review Online, Bench Memos, Obama's SG Pick Elena Kagan- Establishment Clause
- National Review Online, Bench Memos, Obama's SG Pick Elena Kagan- Criminal Procedure
The Wall
Thomas J. Perrelli, Nominee, Associate Attorney General
Information
- Led the Department of Justiceís Tobacco Litigation Team during the Clinton Administrationís campaign against cigarette manufacturers.
- Stephen Dinan and Jerry Seper, Obamaís Justice Pick Draws Fire of Pro-Lifers, The Washington Times, Jan. 6, 2009, available at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/06/obamas-justice-pick-draws-fire-of-pro-lifers/.
- Represented Terry Schiavoís husband, Michael, in his effort to terminate Terryís life-sustaining treatment ìnot to be part of a difficult struggle in a family, but once the government got involved, when the legislative and executive branch got involved to take the decision away from the courtsÖBoth the Florida statute and the federal statute were really attacks on the judiciary.î
- Declan McCullagh, Obama picks RIAAís Favorite Lawyer for a Top Justice Post, CNet News, Jan. 6, 2009, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10133425-38.html.
- ìAs a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industryÖThat was then. As president-elect, one of Obama's first tech-related decisions has been to select the Recording Industry Association of America's favorite lawyer to be the third in command at the Justice Department.î
- ìDuring his confirmation hearing, it will be instructive to see if senators ask whether his zealous anti-file sharing advocacy can make him an objective civil servant--especially when these same politicians want the Justice Department to sue peer-to-peer pirates at taxpayer's expense.î
Backgrounders The Wall
Dawn E. Johnsen, Nominee, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel
Information
- Former Legal Director for NARAL, or the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (now NARAL Pro-Choice America). Previously, she served as a staff attorney with the ACLUís Reproductive Freedom Project.
- Dawn Johnsen, A Progressive Agenda for Women's Reproductive Health and Liberty on Roe v. Wade's Thirty-Fifth Anniversary, issue brief for American Constitution Society (2008), available at http://www.acslaw.org/node/5929.
- ìBeginning in the 1990s the anti-abortion movement began a new campaign to enact criminal bans on what were labeled ëpartial birth abortionsí ñ an invented and intentionally provocative political term previously unknown to the medical profession.î (p. 1).
- ìThe progressive agenda would focus on the courts as the vehicles for desired change.î (p. 6).
- Dawn Johnsen, The Creation of Fetal Rights: Conflicts with Womenís Constitutional Rights to Liberty, Privacy and Equal Protection, 95 Yale L. J. 599 (1986).
- "Until recently, the law did not recognize the existence of the fetus except for a few very specific purposes." (p. 601).
- "In thus treating the fetus, courts have glossed over crucial differences between fetuses and persons, and have lost sight of the interests that narrow legal recognition of the fetus traditionally has attempted to protect. They have ignored alternatives to equating the fetus with a person that would have more appropriately served their goals." (p. 610).
- ìThe rationale behind using fetal rights laws to control the actions of women during pregnancy is strikingly similar to that used in the past to exclude women from the paid labor force and to confine them to the ëprivateí sphere.î (p. 624).
- National Abortion & Reproductive Freedom Project, Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Appellants, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989) (No. 88-605).
- ìThese women and others who are the inevitable losers in the contraceptive lottery no more ëconsentí to pregnancy than pedestrians ëconsentí to being struck by drunk drivers.î
- ìLegal abortion remains safer than childbirth.î
- Dawn Johnsen, What's a President to Do? Interpreting the Constitution in the Wake of the Bush Administration's Abuses, 88 B.U.L. Rev. 395 (2008).
- ìFurther, President Bush has advanced extreme constitutional positions outside the mainstream of legal thought and unsupported by judicial precedent without due consideration of whether the context affords him that authority.î (p. 400).
- Dawn Johnsen, Outrage on the Latest OLC Torture Memo, April 3, 2008 (http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/archive
/2008/04/03/outrage-at-the-latest-olc-torture-memo.aspx).
- Wrote that President Bushís administration undermined the core of the OLC whose role should be to ìsay no to the President.î
- ìIím afraid we are growing immune to just how outrageous and destructive it is, in a democracy, for the President to violate federal statutes in secret.î
- John Yooís Memo demands ìour outrageÖBut we must regain our ability to feel outrage whenever our government acts lawlessly and devises bogus constitutional arguments for outlandishly expansive presidential power.î
- In How Roe Will Really Go, Philadelphia Daily News (January 30, 2006), she fought the nomination of then-Judge Alito ñ saying that he was ìthe first nominee since Robert Bork with a clear paper trail of opposition to Roe.î
- Dawn Johnsen, Lessons From the Right: Progressive Constitutionalism for the Twenty-First Century, 1 Harv. L. & Políy Rev. 239 (2007).
- ìIn short, the Rightís rhetoric seeks to disguise a far-reaching agenda for constitutional change that selectively supports judicial restraint and seeks to invalidate laws and precedents inconsistent with the Rightís substantive goals. Republican-appointed judges, in fact, ended the twentieth century by invalidating congressional statutes at an extraordinary rate.î (p. 241).
- ìImplicit throughout is the reality that genuine progress toward realizing even the most brilliant, compelling, and detailed constitutional vision requires political power. Progressives must elect representatives committed to progressive constitutional principles and receptive to using their power to implement them.î (p. 243).
Backgrounders The Wall
National Review, Andrew McCarthy, March 9, 2009
Lawyer's Lawyer, Radical's Radical: Meet Obama DOJ nominee Dawn Johnsen
Pregnancy provokes a welter of feelings, physical and emotional. But does anyone really think of pregnancy as slavery? Apparently so: Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen, Pres. Barack Obama's nominee to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
Read More...
Wendy Long, Washington Times, February 10, 2009
LONG: Obama's legal extremists
Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy will try to rush though hearings on two Department of Justice appointees today before the public or the Senate can fully consider their records and positions.
That may be by design. The two appointees have far-left records.
Read More...
Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2009
Rushing to Justice
Read More...
February 9, 2009
Below is a copy of a full page ad that we ran in today's copy of Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper. We hope you will join us in asking Senator Leahy . . . why the rush to judgment on these crucial nominations? View full ad here.
NRO Bench Memo, Ed Whelan, February 9, 2009
The Confirmation Rush
Given the hard-Left records of President Obama's senior DOJ picks, it's no surprise that Judiciary Committee chairman Pat Leahy is pressing for early hearings to make it difficult for Senate Republicans to expose those records. Compare and contrast:
In 2001, President Bush's nominee for Deputy Attorney General, Larry Thompson, received his committee hearing 50 days after President Bush announced his nomination, and he was confirmed 85 days after that date. In 2009, President Obama's nominee for Deputy Attorney General, David Ogden, received his committee hearing 32 31 days after then-President-elect Obama announced his nomination.
In 2001, Bush's nominee for Solicitor General, Ted Olson, received his committee hearing 50 days after Bush announced his nomination, and he was confirmed 99 days after that date. In 2009, Obama's nominee for Solicitor General, Elena Kagan, is slated to have her committee hearing tomorrow36 days after Obama announced her nominationeven though (as a Senate staffer tells me) the questionnaire response that she submitted doesn't include all the requested publications.
If the 18 19-day and 14-day differences strike you as insignificant, have in mind that those extra days would more than double the time that committee staffers have had to review the nominees' questionnaire responses and the voluminous materials accompanying those responses.
In Roll Call today, the Judicial Confirmation Network has this ad faulting Leahy's rush and placing it in the context of Obama's broader mess-ups on nominations.
Associated Press, Mark Sherman, February 6, 2009
Ginsburg's illness could lead to Obama appointment
WASHINGTON Some presidents are handed the chance to remake the Supreme Court for a generation, if enough justices leave. Others wait in vain to make even one appointment.
President Barack Obama took office with a strong prospect that his first four years in office could bring two or more openings on the high court, though he may well be replacing aging liberal justices with younger ones.
Read More...
February 2, 2009
JCN Open Memo
TO: JCN Members, Supporters, and Interested Parties
FROM: Wendy E. Long, Judicial Confirmation Network
RE: Rasmussen Poll Shows U.S. Voters Disagree with Obama on Court
Anyone who wonders if American voters agree with President Obama's criteria for picking Supreme Court Justices should take a look at the results of a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
The Rasmussen survey shows that nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters (64%) say U.S. Supreme Court decisions should be based on what is written in the Constitution, but only 35% think that President Obama shares that view.
The Rasmussen findings are extremely close to the findings in a November 2008 nationwide survey of actual voters by The Polling Company, which found that regardless of whether they voted for Obama or McCain in the presidential race, voters favor judicial restraint by more than 3 to 1. A full 70% of voters said they prefer a President to nominate Justices to the Supreme Court and judges to the federal courts who "will interpret and apply the law as it is written and not take into account their own viewpoints and experiences." Only 22% thought that judges should, as President Obama urges, "take into account their own viewpoints and experiences" in deciding cases.
Rasmussen found that regardless of party affiliation, Americans believe that Supreme Court rulings should be based on what is in the written Constitution: 79% of Republicans think so, as do 64% of unaffiliated voters and 52% of Democrats.
The U.S. Senate will have the responsibility of evaluating and voting on President Obama's judicial nominees. President Obama has advanced the most radical judicial activist philosophy of any president in American history. He said that judges should decide cases based on their own "deepest values," "core concerns," and "the depth and breadth of [their] empathy." According to President Obama, "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart" -- not what is in the text, principles, and history of our Constitution and other laws.
President Obama's unprecedented call for judicial activism must be met with an unprecedented level of Senate scrutiny. For every nominee, there should be a presumption that he would -- as President Obama has told us he prefers -- decide cases based on his personal views. It should be up to each individual nominee to rebut the presumption and to prove that he would rule on the basis of what the law actually provides, as two-thirds of Americans believe judges should.
Committee for Justice, January 29, 2009
Specter to Obama: Renominate Bush Judge Picks
Since the election of President Obama, the Committee for Justice and others have called on the President to renominate some of George W. Bush's unconfirmed judicial nominees, in order to show bipartisanship and match the similar gesture made by Bush in the first year of his presidency. We're delighted to see that Sen. Arlen Specter, the Judiciary Committee's ranking member and a man who knows a thing or two about bipartisanship, has put his considerable weight behind the suggestion. In a letter to Obama released today, Sen. Specter names three unconfirmed nominees who deserve "particular" consideration. They are Peter Keisler, Judge Glen Conrad, and Judge Paul Diamond, Bush nominees to the D.C., Fourth, and Third Circuits respectively. The full text of the letter is provided here.
Josh Montez, CitizenLink.com, January 28, 2009
Good News: Most Americans Support Strict Interpretation of Constitution
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters say U.S. Supreme Court decisions should be based on what is written in the Constitution, but only 35 percent think President Barack Obama agrees with them.
That's according to a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
"The survey reveals the American people are much more conservative regarding judges than our president is or any of the liberals in Congress," said Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action.
Hausknecht said Obama a former constitutional law instructor should pay attention to the survey, especially as he makes appointments to the federal bench.
"During his campaign, Obama promised to appoint judges who were empathetic with plaintiffs," Hausknecht said. "That's the wrong way to judge. The Constitution should be the start and finish of how judges judge."
Read More...
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