gull
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Bush Nominates Another Extremist
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Oct 23 13:52 UTC 2003 |
Janice Brown is yet another example of George W. Bush's tendancy to
favor ideology over qualifications. The California Judicial Nominations
Evaluating Commission rated Brown not qualified for the state supreme
court on two occasions. In addition, a large minority of the ABA
Federal Judiciary Committee found her not qualified for the D.C.
Circuit, and *no* member of that committee rated her as well-qualified.
She has strongly pro-corporate leanings, and is willing to ignore
established precident in order to support them. For example, she wrote
a dissenting opinion in a case involving the firing of a worker who blew
the whistle on a company that was shipping defective parts for
airplanes, arguing that the government had no right to create exceptions
to at-will employment. She also dissented in a case accusing Nike of
making false statements, arguing that commercial speech should be
protected in the same manner as individual speech and that a precident
set 60 years ago should be overturned: "In 1942, the United States
Supreme Court, like a wizard trained at Hogwarts, waved its wand and
plucked the commercial doctrine out of thin air."
She has expressed strongly anti-government views in her writings and
public speeches: "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in,
community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to
control our own destiny atrophies. ...The result is a debased, debauched
culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
In a 1999 speech, she argued that the Bill of Rights is not incorporated
into the 14th amendment, and thus none of the First Amendment
protections restrict what state governments can do. This is a pretty
frightening position from someone who would presumably be in line for a
Supreme Court position.
My suspicion is that the Republican majority will fully support her,
both because of her strong right-wing positions and because, as a Bush
nominee, they're practically obligated to. Because she's black, if the
Democrats filibuster to try to block her appointment the Republicans
will play the race card. In fact, this has already started: "She is a
conservative African-American woman, and for some that alone
disqualifies her nomination to the D.C. circuit." -- Orrin Hatch.
Links:
Alliance for Justice report:
http://www.independentjudiciary.com/resources/docs/Brown%20Report%20FINAL.p
df
Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100900,00.html
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klg
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response 3 of 35:
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Oct 23 16:40 UTC 2003 |
Justice for Justice Brown
Debra Saunders, October 23, 2003
Be clear why the Congressional Black Caucus and other so-called civil-
rights groups oppose California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers
Brown's appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia. It is not because Brown wrote a decision that upheld
Proposition 209, the voter-approved initiative that ended racial and
gender preferences in California state hiring, contracting and
admissions. It's not because she was on the losing side of a 4-3
California Supreme Court ruling that overturned a law requiring
parental consent for a minor's abortion.
What really gets under caucus members' thin skins is that Janice Rogers
Brown is a black conservative.
You see, the all-Democratic caucus holds that it alone represents the
African American community, that the Democratic Party essentially owns
black Americans and that African Americans owe the Democratic Party.
Thus, caucus members will hound any black person who escapes the
liberal plantation. . . .
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rcurl
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response 5 of 35:
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Oct 23 17:40 UTC 2003 |
I watched Sen. Durkins commentary on Justice Brown, and it was quite
critical of her extreme neoconservative views. Her response, though, was
mostly to act personally injured about the cartoon about her that Durkin
brought up - probably the least relevant part of his commentary.
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