See the attached article on Bush's upcoming judicial nominations. He is going for hard-right nominees of the most extreme sort. Top of the list is Jeffrey Sutton, currently a partner at Day Jones, but at a young age already having a track record of having filed a series of briefs that have collectively negated more civil rights than any other lawyer out there.
My god, this guy is a scary guy who has been on the forefront of constitutional assaults on discrimination laws, striking down federal legislation in the name of "states rights", defending corporate abuse of the legal system, denying prisoners appeal rights, and expanding the drug war.
To give you a summary
Jeffery Sutton has.. * Filed the Garrett brief on behalf of the state of Alabama in the recent case that struck down ADA suits against state governments * Defended Wal-Mart's withholding of evidence in discovery, for which Wal-Mart was sanctioned by courts * Filed brief on behalf of state of Alabama to help invalidate the Violence Against Women Act * Represented Wal-Mart in seeking to bar independent contractors from being protected against racial discrimination * Represented the Florida Board of Regents in Kimel case that barred economic recovery against states in age discrimination cases, a precursor to the Garrett decision * Represented a coalition of states in the City of Boerne v. Flores case which struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the name of states rights * Argued to restrict prisoner's rights to appeal under the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 before the Supreme Court in the 1998 Hohn v. United States case. * Vigorously supported the drug war, including the suspension in Ohio of driver licenses for drug possession, even when no car was involved in arrest. State v. Thompkins, 1996 WL 276144 (Ohio June 5, 1996)
This does not include the array of corporate cases I am sure we could find in his role as a partner at Jones Day. This guy is particularly dangerous. He is apparently the lawyer who has singlehandedly been most responsible for the whole string of cases from Flores through Kimel to Garrett in building the doctrines of state government immunity from discrimination lawsuits. Add to his defense of corporations against discrimination suits in the private sector and you have an example of an almost unmitigatingly rightwing guy.
We need to be mobilizing to defeat and filibuster this nomination right away. Start calling your Senator NOW!
Nathan Newman
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Bush to nominate conservative judges http://www.icanonline.net/news/fullpage.cfm?articleid=C1E4121E-C8EA- 42D2-A4F 96C272413F9C8&cx=news.news By Joan Biskupic USA TODAY March 23, 2001
WASHINGTON -- As a candidate, George W. Bush declared he wanted to makefederal courts more conservative. Now, President Bush is poised to deliver.
Within a few weeks, Bush will make his first nominations to federal courts. Among those high on the list for influential appeals courts are conservatives such as Michael McConnell, a University of Utah law professor who has an expertise in church-state disputes; and Jeffrey Sutton, a Columbus, Ohio, lawyer who has successfully argued states' rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bush's nominee for U.S. solicitor general, the government's top lawyer before the Supreme Court, is Theodore Olson. He is best known for winning the Florida election case Bush vs. Gore at the high court. He also is one of the architects of contemporary legal conservatism. He argued successfully against the University of Texas' affirmative action program five years ago, persuading an appeals court to strike down the policy favoring minority applicants.
The president's choices, combined with Thursday's bold step of eliminating the American Bar Association's historic role of screening prospective nominees, send the message that the White House wants to tightly control the selection of judges and to curb potential influence from the left.
Halting the ABA's five decades of screening judicial nominees for competence and the moves to bring on board the most prominent thinkers of the conservative legal community indicate the Bush administration's resolve to reshape the nation's courts.
"The message seems to be a right-wing takeover," says Sheldon Goldman, a University of Massachusetts-Amherst political science professor who has tracked judicial nominations since the 1960s. Goldman criticized Bush's move to get rid of the ABA reviews.
The administration appears quite determined to change the bench, an approach that contrasts with the Clinton administration's slower, measured method of choosing judges. Bush's tactics recall the vigor of Ronald Reagan's push to put a conservative stamp on the federal judiciary.
White House counsel Alberto Gonzales said recently that the administration wants judges who do not "use the bench to further an agenda."
"I do think judges are asked to do too much in society," says Gonzales, who was a Texas Supreme Court justice, appointed by then-Gov. Bush. Gonzales says courts have been excessively involved in prisoners' rights cases and school integration disputes.
That view contrasts with the more liberal notion that judges often must intervene to safeguard the rights of people, particularly the poor and disenfranchised, whose interests often are not represented by majority votes in legislatures.
The administration is finalizing its first slate of nominees. About a dozen names for the appeals courts are likely to be sent soon to the Senate, which has confirmation authority. People close to the nomination process say some leading candidates are McConnell for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which covers six Western states; Sutton for the 6th Circuit, which is based in Cincinnati and covers four states; and Washington, D.C., lawyer John Roberts (a former clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist) for the appeals court here that mostly handles disputes over federal regulations.
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