http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jun2003/crts-j30.shtml
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Senate Democrats' posture of adamant opposition to the administration's efforts to pack the federal courts with right-wing extremists is largely a pretense, since they have gone along with the vast majority of Bush nominees for district and appeals court slots, allowing 127 out of 129 to go through-not counting Kuhl and Pryor, where filibusters have not yet begun.
More significant than the nominees the Democrats have opposed-including Charles Pickering, the Mississippi former segregationist who was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year but has been renominated this year by Bush-are the nominees they have allowed to win confirmation, many of whom are politically indistinguishable from Estrada, Owen, Kuhl or Pryor. These include:
* Jeffrey Sutton, confirmed to the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio, despite widespread opposition from activists on behalf of the disabled. Sutton was the lead attorney in a 2001 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Americans With Disabilities Act did not apply to state employers. The case concerned a state nurse fired after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. He also argued before the Supreme Court, successfully, for overturning the Violence Against Women Act.
* Deborah Cook, also confirmed to the 6th Circuit, approved by the Judiciary Committee with only two Democrats voting against. As an Ohio Supreme Court justice, Cook was frequently in a minority of one in her opposition to all findings against corporations charged with poisoning, injuring or discriminating against their employees. In one case, a 6-1 majority of the largely Republican court found that the family of a warehouse worker killed by a forklift should be allowed to sue his employer, Wal-Mart, because company officials had destroyed documents in the case and lied about it. Cook was the only dissenter.
* Claude Allen, chosen for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., Bush's most prominent black judicial nominee. A former campaign spokesman for Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a one-time segregationist turned icon of the fascistic wing of the Republican Party, Allen baited Helms's Democratic opponent in 1984 for his support from "the queers." He later served as a Helms aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and was named assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services by Bush.
* Steven M. Colloton of Iowa, who served on the legal staff of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr in the attempt to impeach and remove President Clinton, nominated for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.
* Timothy M. Tymkovich, named to the 10th Circuit in Denver, an outspoken opponent of laws to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. As solicitor general of the state of Colorado, he defended the anti-gay Amendment 2, later struck down by the Supreme Court, and argued that the state should not authorize Medicaid-funded abortions for victims of rape or incest.
* Jay Bybee, confirmed to the 9th Circuit in San Francisco by a 74-19 vote, with a majority of Democrats approving his nomination, including Minority Whip Harry Reid. Bybee is an extreme proponent of states' rights, arguing for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, which would end popular election of US senators and revert to their election by state legislatures. He has also written extensively against gay rights laws and in favor of relaxing the separation of church and state.
* James Leon Holmes, named to the federal district court in Little Rock, Ark., and backed by both of the Democratic senators from Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. Holmes is the former president of Arkansas Right to Life and publicly compared abortion rights supporters to Nazis. He also authored articles upholding, from the standpoint of Catholic religious doctrine, the legal and social subordination of wives to husbands.
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