Virginian-Pilot
by Simon Heller
June 3, 2008
A recent 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which found unconstitutional Virginai's statute banning "partial birth infanticide," reminds us how tenuous women's right to choose abortion is in the United States. It also reminds Americans how much rides on this year's presidential election.
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McCain's Justice Should Scare Liberals
U.S. News and World Report
May 21, 2008
Conservatives frequently remind their voters that a president's appointments of like-minded jurists to the Supreme Court are a serious consideration on Election Day.
As a counterpoint, voters of a moderate or liberal bent should be equally or even more concerned given the makeup of the current nine justices.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, delivered a speech earlier this month that was relegated to many back pages. He told an audience that his nominations to the court would be in the mold of Chief
Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Both were named by President Bush. That should send shivers down the spines of those who have seen Roberts and Alito line up with justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas as a solid bloc of conservative votes.
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WEB RESOURCE ALERT:
www.Vote411.org
Launched by the League of Women Voters Education Fund (LWVEF) in October of 2006, VOTE411.org is a "one-stop-shop" for election related information. It provides nonpartisan information to the public with both general and state-specific information on a range of aspects of the election process, including absentee ballot information, election dates, ID requirements, voter qualifications, and much, more more.
Justice at Stake: Five States to Watch in Judicial Elections 2008
League of Women Voters - PRESS RELEASE
Originally Posted: 10/11/2007
Thirty-nine state contestable Supreme Court seats in 21 states are on the
ballot next year, potentially making 2008 the most expensive and
acrimonious year ever for candidates seeking election to America's state courts. But threats to the fairness and impartiality of the courts may not end with contentious judicial elections: special interest ballot measures to tamper with the courts, and legislative efforts to inject politics into nonpartisan judicial selection systems, are also on the horizon for 2008.
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Writer Jeffrey Toobin speaks about candidates' impact on the future of the Supreme Court
HOW JOHN MCCAIN SAVED PRESIDENT BUSH'S JUDICIAL NOMINEES
The Hill
by Armstrong Williams
Posted: 02/27/08 05:01 PM [ET]
Sen. John McCain of Arizona is well on his way to becoming the nominee of the Republican Party in this presidential election and will certainly face a tough and historic challenge from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). There's no question that of all the presidential candidates in the field on both sides, clearly McCain presents unmatched credentials.
Often times in presidential races the core constituencies of both sides distort their candidates' record. Having had a front-row seat during President Bush's Supreme Court nomination battles, I know first hand that the conservative base of the Republican Party is clearly distorting and misrepresenting the facts of McCain's role during this process, and my intention is to set this record straight.
There has long been criticism of McCain from the conservative right that he betrayed the conservative judicial nominees of Bush by derailing the plan of then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and others to deploy the so-called "nuclear option" in 2005 to achieve a Senate Rules change to terminate the judicial filibusters by the Democrats. These filibusters were unprecedented and had the effect of requiring the president to achieve 60 votes for confirmation in order to invoke cloture to stop debate (i.e., the filibuster). As a result of this tactic almost a dozen judges were blocked from an up-or-down vote and Bush was facing serious constraints in his choice for potential Supreme Court openings.
What McCain did was to negotiate an agreement with 13 other senators from both parties (the so-called "Gang of 14") to preclude a vote on the Senate rules change in return for a commitment to resort to the filibuster device only in "extraordinary circumstances," defined to include issues of ability, character or ethics, but NOT judicial philosophy.
Since the alleged conservative judicial philosophy of Bush's nominees was the reason for the filibusters, the agreement had the direct effect of terminating the filibusters and paving the way for the nomination and confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. The agreement also freed up the confirmation of the dozen or so appellate nominees who had been frozen for months and, in some cases, years.
At the time of the agreement, and before the confirmations were finalized, some conservatives attacked the agreement and McCain for initiating it on the grounds that it was not "permanent" -- that is, the agreement might be easier to turn back than a rule change. This was theoretically true at the time, but there was nothing impermanent about the confirmations, as the judges involved will serve for life. Of course, the issue of the rule change later became moot after the Democrats regained control of the Senate and thus had no need for use of the filibuster since they had the ability to defeat any nomination by majority vote. Even where the Democrats have not been able to muster their own majority to defeat a nominee such as Attorney General Michael Mukasey (and thus could have benefited from a filibuster), however, there was no whisper of a filibuster despite the fact that he only garnered 53 votes.
The criticism remains and reverberates from some conservative pundits as factual, however, even though the reasons have long since disappeared if they ever had any validity. It is time to give McCain credit for his contribution to what is Bush's most important and lasting domestic legacy -- his lifetime appointments to the federal courts, including his two to the Supreme Court. Making this political arrangement was not easy, as emotions were running very high at the time. Indeed, one should also recognize McCain's skill on its own, because it is very strong evidence of his ability to work across the aisle. This ability will be in very great demand, whoever wins the White House.
McCain deserves some credit for freeing these justices and judges -- not continued criticism for allegedly frustrating one of President Bush's most important and enduring legacies. There are definitely issues where conservatives can criticize McCain in a substantive and legitimate way, but they have no legs to stand on in criticizing his role in Bush's judicial nominees to the courts.
Williams is the CEO and founder of the Graham Williams Group and The Right Side Production Inc., an international public relations and media firm based in Washington. A political commentator in many venues, he is a regular contributor to The Hill's Pundits Blog.
