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MOBILIZE AGAINST BUSH RIGHTWING "COURT PACKING"
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The National Lawyers Guild, May 9, 2001
Contact: Nathan Newman, NLG Judicial Nominations Chair
nathan at newman.org (203) 777-9704
Heidi Bogosian, NLG Executive Director
director at nlg.org (212) 627-2566
CALL THE SENATE SWITCHBOARD and demand that Democrat and moderate Republicans refuse to approve the hard right judicial nominees Bush is sending up to Capitol Hill.
The Senate switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. Use it!
The National Lawyers Guild (www.nlg.org) condemns the rightwing judicial nominations announced from the White House in the last few days. We join with other progressive forces like the Alliance for Justice (www.afj.org) and People for the American Way (www.pfaw.org) in demanding the rejection of rightwing nominees.
"Having stolen the Presidency last fall," declared NLG President Bruce Nestor, "Bush is seeking to steal the judiciary and pack it with Federalist ideologues."
The Federalist Society (http://www.fed-soc.org/) is a rightwing legal organization that has promoted the ideological takeover of the courts in order to strike down federal civil rights laws and environmental regulations. Its members include a number of the announced nominees, such as Jeffrey Sutton, Michael McConnell, Edith Brown Clement, as well as Bush's nominee for Solicitor General, Ted Olsen, who led the legal battle last fall in Bush v. Gore to prevent a full count of ballots in Florida. As well, Bush has nominated outspoken conservative lawyers such as John G. Roberts and Miguel Estrada (Olsen's law partner) along with former Strom Thurmond aide, Judge Dennis Shedd and conservative Terrence Boyle.
Under the banner of "No lifetime appointments for an illegitimate President", the National Lawyers Guild is mobilizing to have the Senate block all Bush nominees and instead create a bipartisan process of nominations. Given the court interference in Bush's selection for the Presidency last fall and given the fact that a majority of the population voted against his election, Bush has lost the legitimacy to appoint judges and thereby control the third branch of our government, the judiciary. We call on Senators to block ALL nominees until a bipartisan process for selecting judicial nominees is developed which reflects the majority view in this country in support of civil rights, environmental regulations and protection of civil liberties.
Symbolic of the rightwing direction of Bush's court packing goals is the nomination of Jeffrey Sutton for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Jeffrey Sutton, a longtime star in the Federalist Society, has been on the forefront of constitutional assaults on discrimination laws, advocating the striking down of 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 just a sketch of his wide-ranging assault on civil and individual rights, Sutton:
* Filed the Sandoval brief for Alabama that led to the undermining the private right of action to sue states for civil rights violations under Title VI
* Filed the Garrett brief for the state of Alabama that struck down the right to sue states for violations under the Americans with Disabilities Act
* Filed a brief on behalf of state of Alabama to invalidate the Violence Against Women Act
* Represented the Florida Board of Regents in the Kimel case that barred economic recovery against states in age discrimination cases
* Represented a coalition of states in the City of Boerne v. Flores case which struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act
* Represented Wal-Mart in seeking to bar independent contractors from being protected against racial discrimination
* Defended Wal-Mart's withholding of evidence in discovery, for which Wal-Mart was sanctioned by courts
* 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.
* Assaulted civil liberties in the name of the drug war, including the suspension of driver licenses for drug possession, even when no car was involved in arrest. State v. Thompkins (Ohio 1996)
In the Sandoval case, Sutton argued in the Supreme Court on behalf of Alabama in a case challenging even the right to sue states under Title VI for violations of civil rights by state governments. This is, as the dissent noted, a radical revision of Title VI precedents that has gutted protections against state discrimination by preventing the private right of action to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964- the culmination of the Right's legal assault on antidiscrimination laws. All of this does not even include the array of anti-worker and anti-consumer cases argued by Sutton in his role as a partner at Jones Day.
In the name of "balance", Bush has included in his list of nominees a couple of former Clinton nominees who had been blocked from even getting a Senate vote by rightwing Senators like Jesse Helms. However, to complement rightwing nominees like Sutton with nominees like Roger Gregory, who even Republican Senator John Warner admits is no liberal but a moderate, is not balance but merely a political figleaf.
No nominee should be approved by the Senate unless he or she is broadly acceptable to Senators in both parties. We call on Senators to enforce their constitutional role of "advice and consent" to block Bush's attempt at a rightwing takeover of the courts.
CALL THE SENATE SWITCHBOARD NOW! (202) 224-3121.
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