Priscilla Owen

CFJ Demands Affirmative Action for Southern White Males

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 11/5/2009 5:46 pm

Back when President Bush was in office, one of the standard right-wing tactics for putting pressure on Democratic Senators to confirm his nominees was to accuse them of being anti-whatever the specific nominee happened to be.

When they opposed Bill Pryor, it was because they were anti-Catholic; when they opposed Miguel Estrada, it was because they were anti-Hispanic; when they opposed Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown, it was because they were anti-women; and when they opposed Leslie Southwick, it was because they were anti-southern white male.

Now President Obama is in office and making his own nominations ... but nothing has changed, as Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice is now accusing him discrimination because Obama has made a handful of nominations and not one has been a white southern male:

Yesterday, President Obama nominated Albert Diaz and James A. Wynn of North Carolina to the Fourth Circuit of the second highest court in the land, the United States Court of Appeals ...Their nominations bring to six the number of U.S. Court of Appeals nominees President Obama has named to the southern circuits – the Fourth, Fifth, and Eleventh – and to the handful of southern seats outside those circuits (note that circuit nominees virtually always hail from the state to which the corresponding circuit seat is informally assigned). None of these six southerners is a white male. So once again we have to wonder whether a Democratic bias against southern white men serving on the federal appeals courts is at work. (In addition to Diaz and Wynn, the six include Andre M. Davis, Barbara Milano Keenan, Beverly Baldwin Martin, and Jane Branstetter Stranch).

Does President Obama or his advisors believe that southern white men are likely to be bigoted, making them unfit to serve on the second most powerful court in the land? We hope not and readily concede that it is difficult to know if any such stereotype lurks in the White House. The absence of southern white male circuit nominees could, instead, be an innocent coincidence or the not-so-innocent byproduct of a judicial selection process dominated by racial and gender preferences.

But regardless of the reason for the pattern we noted in 2007 and again now, even the appearance that Democrats are biased against southern white men is a potential problem for the party generally, and for President Obama’s goal of transcending old racial divisions. At the very least, the pattern merits further thought and discussion, both outside and inside the White House.

White male judges currently hold 20 of the occupied 37 seats on the three southern circuits that Levey cites, and hold 95 of 157 of all the circuit court seats.

The JCN’s Million Dollar Mystery

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 10/1/2008 1:37 pm

Just last month I wrote about the Judicial Confirmation Network, a bogus grassroots organization set up by Jay Sekulow to help press for confirmation of President Bush’s judges back in 2005.

As I noted then, the JCN dedicated itself to fighting for the confirmation of the likes of Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown in preparation for confirmation fights over Supreme Court nominees.  True to form, JCN was active in defending both John Roberts and Samuel Alito and ginning up right-wing support for their confirmations.  But then an interesting thing happened:  Samuel Alito was confirmed and the JCN all but ceased to operate.  

From January 21, 2006 when they issued this press release, they issued just a handful of releases over the next two years (8, by our count) until they swung back into action in August.  

And now, with the election gearing up, the JCN is back on the scene announcing a new million dollar ad campaign targeting Barack Obama on the issue of the courts by linking him to Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and William Ayers:

The Judicial Confirmation Network (JCN) today launched a $1 million first phase of a nationwide grassroots campaign, which includes television ads in national and targeted markets, to raise awareness and recruit activists on the critical issue of the U.S. Supreme Court.

…

The text of the ad:

Wendy: With the help of hundreds of thousands of Americans, the Judicial Confirmation Network fought for the nominations of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Sam Alito. The next President may nominate 4 new Justices. So we'd like you to see this....

VO: Choosing the right Justices is critical for America. We don't know who Barack Obama would choose, but we know this: He chose as one of his first financial backers a slumlord now convicted on 16 counts of corruption. Obama chose as an associate a man who helped to bomb the Pentagon and said he "didn't do enough." And Obama chose as his pastor a man who has blamed America for the 9/11 attacks. Obama chose to associate with these men, while voting against these men.

Wendy: Please join the Judicial Confirmation Network. We need a Supreme Court that respects the Constitution and Justices who won't legislate from the bench. Judicial Confirmation Network paid for this message and is responsible for it.

Considering that the JCN had been all but defunct for more than two years while its two employees were busy working on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, it raises the question of just how they managed to raise a million dollars for ads despite seemingly doing no fund raising and only having re-opened their bogus front-group a little over one month ago.

It Never Ends

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 4/8/2008 9:01 am

It is no secret that, when it comes to the issue of judicial nominees, the Right just likes to fight.  And one of the way the GOP and the Right try to gin up their base in an election year is to make judges an issue, and make unfounded accusations of bigotry against any opponents. They’re at it once again: 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday he has not ruled out the option of shutting down the chamber to put fresh pressure on Democrats to confirm President Bush’s stalled judicial nominees.

…

His statement came after Republicans brought a Judiciary Committee meeting to a near-standstill to vent their frustrations with what they said was Democratic foot-dragging to confirm 10 pending nominees to federal appeals courts. They complained that there have been no committee hearings on nominees since last September, and say that at least nine more nominees need to be confirmed by the end of Bush’s term in order to match the 15 judges the Republican-controlled Senate approved in the final two years of the Clinton administration.

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters last month that one of the options to force Democratic action is “shutting down the Senate.” He reiterated that threat this week in an interview with the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

In an interview with The Hill on Thursday, Specter said it was “a possibility” that the GOP would object to motions that allow routine business to proceed on the floor, a move that would stifle Senate action and effectively bring the chamber to a halt.

And once again, the Right is deploying its complementary tactic of ignoring the concerns raised about a controversial nominees’ record or judicial philosophy in favor of simply accusing Democrats of opposing the nominee out of bigotry.  As we’ve noted before:

The Right sees some nefarious ulterior motive at work – and that is how they manage to convince themselves that opposition to [Leslie] Southwick stems not from concerns about his record but from some sort of deep-seeded hatred of Southern white males … the same way they said opposition to Miguel Estrada was really due to anti-Latino prejudice … and opposition to Priscilla Owen was the result of flagrant anti-woman bias … and opposition to William Pryor was actually due to anti-Catholic bigotry … and opposition to Janice Rogers Brown was in actuality rooted in racism. 

And guess what? Here they go again ... this time with a bit of a twist, as Fidelis circularly accuses Sen. Pat Leahy , who is himself Catholic, of accusing Robert Conrad, who is likewise Catholic, of making anti-Catholic statements:

In the latest attack on 4th Circuit nominee Judge Robert Conrad, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), accused Conrad of making anti-Catholic comments in a letter submitted to a Catholic periodical over nine years ago. Leahy’s accusation comes as Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have come under increased pressure to act on President Bush’s judicial nominations … Anti-Catholic bigotry in America is real, and we welcome efforts to confront it where it truly exists. But in the case of Judge Conrad, there is nothing that even remotely resembles anti-Catholicism.

While that complaint is a bit confusing and probably unlikely to generate any sort of outrage, Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice decided to take a different track and simply accuse Senate Democrats of being anti-Semitic for opposing the nomination of Peter Keisler: 

Is the fact that Keisler is Jewish similarly contributing to his obstruction by Democrats? There is no way to know. But it’s worth noting that, of the nine appeals court nominees currently being obstructed, three are Jewish.

Of course, it is “worth noting” that three of the nominees are Jewish only if you are attempting to insinuate that opposition to their nominations is rooted in anti-Semitism - despite admitting that you have “no way to know” and absolutely no evidence that that is actually the case.

The Right’s Continuing Outrage Over the “Gang of 14”

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 2/25/2008 4:55 pm

It has been nearly three years since fourteen senators - seven Democrats and seven Republicans – hammered out a deal that preserved the use of the filibuster on judicial nominees and, judging by an article in the New York Times, the Right still hasn’t gotten over it:

Back in 2005, Senator John McCain of Arizona and fellow members of the so-called Gang of 14 were hailed as heroes in some quarters when they fashioned an unusual pact that averted a Senate vote on banning filibusters against judicial nominees.

Now Mr. McCain’s central role in that effort, which cleared the way for confirmation of some conservative jurists, is cited as one reason for lingering distrust of him among many conservatives. The power to appoint federal judges is seen as one of the most crucial presidential roles by many on the right, and some continue to believe the agreement undermined the Republican leadership at the precise moment the party was about to eliminate the ability to use procedural tactics to block judges.

James C. Dobson, an influential conservative leader, noted Mr. McCain’s role in the bipartisan Gang of 14 in his announcement that he could not support the lawmaker as the Republican nominee under any circumstances. Other conservatives still resent it as well.

“When people hear he was part of the Gang of 14, it leaves a bad taste in their mouths,” said Phil Burress, president of the Citizens for Community Values, based in Ohio.

Considering that, thanks to the deal, President Bush managed to seat right-wing ideologues such as William Pryor, Janice Rogers Brown, and Priscilla Owen on the federal bench – not to mention John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court – a lot of people have been wondering just what the Right is so upset about and why they insist on holding McCain’s participation against him.  

In short, they were outraged, and seemingly continue to be outraged, that Senate Republicans failed to take advantage of an opportunity to jettison tradition in order to squash Democrats beneath their feet. 

The “nuclear option” -- as the proposed attempt to do away with the filibuster was known despite Republican attempts to rechristen it the “constitutional option” -- was first floated back in 2003 in response to filibusters against Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen.    Immediately, the Right rallied behind the idea, with groups like Committee for Justice, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Center for Reclaiming America, Concerned Women for America, and the American Center for Law and Justice all serving as vocal advocates. 

When, two years later, their attempts to destroy the filibuster and squash the Democrats were seemingly thwarted by the "Gang of 14," the Right was apoplectic, as we chronicled in the days that followed the announcement:

Playing the Racist Card, Again

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 10/15/2007 4:23 pm

It seems as if Gary Marx has managed to pull himself away from his $8,000-a-month position with Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign to pen an action alert in his capacity as Executive Director of the Judicial Confirmation Network to urge supporters to contact their senators and demand a vote on the nomination of Leslie Southwick:

The Liberal Left led by Senator Ted Kennedy, Minority Leader Harry Reid, and People for the American Way will stop at nothing in order to keep common sense constitutionalist judges like Leslie Southwick off the bench. Ultimately, their unprecedented judicial filibusters are a backdoor political sabotage to manipulate the Senate rules. Their goal is to create a radical new precedent where for the first time in history a future Supreme Court nominee like Justice Roberts or Alito will be forced to receive 60 votes for confirmation rather than a simple and fair majority vote.

The vote on whether to filibuster Judge Southwick is likely to occur this week ... possibly as early as Wednesday. This is our last chance to make our voice heard. The time to call your Senators' offices is today!

Marx then encourages activists to take the time to read an op-ed penned by his partner at the JCN, Wendy Long - who, like Marx, serves on Romney’s National Faith and Values Steering Committee – in which she trots out the Right’s standard claim that those who raise concerns about Southwick’s judicial record and philosophy are really just calling Southwick a racist:

Just when you thought "white male in the South" didn't equal "presumptive racist," a disgusting spectacle with that familiar theme is unfolding in the United States Senate.

…

[Senator Richard] Durbin is doing essentially what [Duke Prosecutor Mike] Nifong and [Al] Sharpton did: attacking someone else as a racist in order to advance his own political agenda. Never mind the facts, never mind the law, just play the race card against a white man in the south and you know you have a good chance to bring him down.

It seems that whenever anyone dares to oppose any of President Bush’s judicial nominees, the Right sees some nefarious ulterior motive at work – and that is how they manage to convince themselves that opposition to Southwick stems not from concerns about his record but from some sort of deep-seeded hatred of Southern white males … the same way they said opposition to Miguel Estrada was really due to anti-Latino prejudice … and opposition to Priscilla Owen was the result of flagrant anti-woman bias … and opposition to William Pryor was actually due to anti-Catholic bigotry … and opposition to Janice Rogers Brown was in actuality rooted in racism.    

Playing the Racist Card

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 6/11/2007 10:01 am

Ever since the election of President Bush, Republicans and their allies on the Right have frequently dealt with opposition to his controversial judicial nominations by ignoring the arguments raised by those with legitimate concerns about a nominee’s record in favor of knocking down strawmen of their own creation.  

For instance, when People For the American Way and others voiced opposition to the confirmation of Miguel Estrada, right-wing groups like The Committee for Justice responded by claiming that such opposition was rooted in the fact that Estrada was Latino and claiming that it was an affront to Hispanic-Americans, ignoring the fact that the opposition was actually due to Estrada’s own refusal to reveal anything about his own jurisprudential views and the administration’s refusal to make his full legal record available to the Senate to review.  

Then, when progressive groups opposed the nominations of Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown, the Right claimed that criticism of the nominees was both sexist and, in the case of Rogers Brown, racist – again, preferring to disregard the substantive concerns about their respective legal records.  

The Right did the exact same thing when it came to the nomination of William Pryor, ignoring serious concerns about his record that displayed a blatant hostility to reproductive choice [among other things, he called Roe vs. Wade the “worst abomination of constitutional law in our history”] and accusing those who opposed his nomination of being anti-Catholic – a tactic they trotted out again when John Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court.   

In situations where the Right couldn’t accuse a nominee’s opponents of being specifically anti-Latino, anti-Catholic, anti-woman, or straight out racist, they attempted to conflate criticism of a nominee’s legal record with false accusations that the nominee was being accused of being racist – a tactic they deployed during the fight over the nomination of Charles Pickering.  As we explained [PDF] back in 2002:

Some Pickering supporters are arguing in effect that it is impossible to criticize Judge Pickering’s public record on the principles that govern civil rights law without accusing him of being a racist.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that with a battle brewing over the nomination of Leslie Southwick to a seat on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit – not incidentally, the very same seat for which Charles Pickering and Michael Wallace were nominated, both of whom faced significant opposition due to their disturbing records on civil rights - the Right has reverted to form and begun using both of these tactics: claiming either that opponents of Southwick’s confirmation are racist or are accusing him of being a racist.   

Priscilla Said It Was Okay

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 8/23/2006 1:23 pm

When the White House announced the nomination of Harriet Miers for a seat on the Supreme Court, the nomination was met with overwhelming opposition from the Right.

The Bush Administration responded by trotting out one of Miers’ close friends, Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, to assure the Right that Miers opposed abortion.  

Ultimately, it was all for naught as Miers withdrew her nomination citing bogus concerns over access to internal White House documents, though the reality was that her nomination was killed by Bush’s own base.

But while Miers’ publicly humiliating travails are over from her nomination period, Hecht’s are not.

In May, the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct admonished Hecht for violating the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct concluding that "Justice Hecht's actions on behalf of Harriet Miers constituted persistent and willful violations of Canons 2B and 5(2) of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct."

Hecht has appealed and is arguing, at least in part, that Priscilla Owen said it was okay:

Hecht testified that the rules — ones that the Texas Supreme Court itself issues — were never intended to include a judge’s comments about a U.S. Supreme Court nominee but were adopted to keep judges out of local political races. But Hecht testified that he sought advice from former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Phillips and Appeals Court Judge Priscilla Owen and was told that he was free to comment.

Considering that Owen has a long history of rewriting and disregarding the law in order to achieve her desired results, perhaps Hecht should have sought out a more reliable source of advice on this issue. 

The Commission stated that Hecht violated

1. Canon 2B of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct states, in pertinent part: "A judge shall not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others."

2. Canon 5(2) of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct states, in pertinent part: "A judge or judicial candidate shall not authorize the public use of his or her name endorsing another candidate for any public office, except that either may indicate support for a political party."

According to the Commission, Hecht

[A]llowed his name and title to be used by the press and the White House in support of his close friend, Harriet Miers, a nominee for the office of United States Supreme Court Justice. Such public support by a judicial official elected to the highest court in Texas, in the eyes of the public and the rest of the judiciary, would be construed as an endorsement of Miers' candidacy, as those terms are commonly used and understood. Because the Commission views Miers' desire for a lifetime appointment to the United States Supreme Court to be a private interest, the efforts of Justice Hecht in promoting his friend's candidacy by responding to media inquiries and assisting the White House in its efforts to convince powerful special interest groups to support her candidacy, constituted an improper use of his office and position to promote Miers' private interest.

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Priscilla Owen Posts Archive

CFJ Demands Affirmative Action for Southern White Males
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 11/05/2009, 5:46pm
Back when President Bush was in office, one of the standard right-wing tactics for putting pressure on Democratic Senators to confirm his nominees was to accuse them of being anti-whatever the specific nominee happened to be. When they opposed Bill Pryor, it was because they were anti-Catholic; when they opposed Miguel Estrada, it was because they were anti-Hispanic; when they opposed Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown, it was because they were anti-women; and when they opposed Leslie Southwick, it was because they were anti-southern white male. Now President Obama is in office and making... MORE >
The JCN’s Million Dollar Mystery
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 10/01/2008, 1:37pm
Just last month I wrote about the Judicial Confirmation Network, a bogus grassroots organization set up by Jay Sekulow to help press for confirmation of President Bush’s judges back in 2005. As I noted then, the JCN dedicated itself to fighting for the confirmation of the likes of Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown in preparation for confirmation fights over Supreme Court nominees.  True to form, JCN was active in defending both John Roberts and Samuel Alito and ginning up right-wing support for their confirmations.  But then an interesting thing happened: ... MORE >
It Never Ends
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Tuesday 04/08/2008, 9:01am
It is no secret that, when it comes to the issue of judicial nominees, the Right just likes to fight.  And one of the way the GOP and the Right try to gin up their base in an election year is to make judges an issue, and make unfounded accusations of bigotry against any opponents. They’re at it once again:  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday he has not ruled out the option of shutting down the chamber to put fresh pressure on Democrats to confirm President Bush’s stalled judicial nominees. … His statement came after Republicans... MORE >
The Right’s Continuing Outrage Over the “Gang of 14”
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 02/25/2008, 4:55pm
It has been nearly three years since fourteen senators - seven Democrats and seven Republicans – hammered out a deal that preserved the use of the filibuster on judicial nominees and, judging by an article in the New York Times, the Right still hasn’t gotten over it: Back in 2005, Senator John McCain of Arizona and fellow members of the so-called Gang of 14 were hailed as heroes in some quarters when they fashioned an unusual pact that averted a Senate vote on banning filibusters against judicial nominees. Now Mr. McCain’s central role in that effort, which... MORE >
Playing the Racist Card, Again
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 10/15/2007, 4:23pm
It seems as if Gary Marx has managed to pull himself away from his $8,000-a-month position with Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign to pen an action alert in his capacity as Executive Director of the Judicial Confirmation Network to urge supporters to contact their senators and demand a vote on the nomination of Leslie Southwick: The Liberal Left led by Senator Ted Kennedy, Minority Leader Harry Reid, and People for the American Way will stop at nothing in order to keep common sense constitutionalist judges like Leslie Southwick off the bench. Ultimately, their... MORE >
Playing the Racist Card
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 06/11/2007, 10:01am
Ever since the election of President Bush, Republicans and their allies on the Right have frequently dealt with opposition to his controversial judicial nominations by ignoring the arguments raised by those with legitimate concerns about a nominee’s record in favor of knocking down strawmen of their own creation.   For instance, when People For the American Way and others voiced opposition to the confirmation of Miguel Estrada, right-wing groups like The Committee for Justice responded by claiming that such opposition was rooted in the fact that Estrada was Latino and... MORE >
Priscilla Said It Was Okay
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 08/23/2006, 1:23pm
When the White House announced the nomination of Harriet Miers for a seat on the Supreme Court, the nomination was met with overwhelming opposition from the Right. The Bush Administration responded by trotting out one of Miers’ close friends, Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, to assure the Right that Miers opposed abortion.   Ultimately, it was all for naught as Miers withdrew her nomination citing bogus concerns over access to internal White House documents, though the reality was that her nomination was killed by Bush’s own base. But while Miers... MORE >