Michigan

So far, Gov. Mitt Romney has managed to win two relatively high-profile Republican straw polls, which undoubtedly help solidify his status as one of the frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination.

Back in March, he won the Conservative Political Action Committee’s (CPAC) straw poll … mainly because he brought in activists specifically for this purpose:

Kevin Madden, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, said the conference volunteers were part of a long-term effort to build grass roots support. “These volunteers are the folks who are going to be on the front lines of our campaign across the country,” he said. “The investment that we are making here is going to offer a greater result as this campaign continues to grow.”

Mr. Madden said the Romney campaign planned to have at least 225 student volunteers at the event, with 90 percent of them living close enough to eliminate the need for housing or transportation.  … All the campaigns encourage their supporters to turn out for the conference and other straw polls. But organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference said reports from students indicated that Mr. Romney’s was the only campaign providing transportation or hotel rooms. The campaign has provided small buses or vans for students from Michigan and Boston, two strongholds of support for Mr. Romney

A closer look at the numbers revealed that Romney didn’t do particularly well, but apparently the Romney campaign was pleased enough with the result to try something similar in South Carolina:

By midday Saturday, the upstate area was rife with rumors of a fixed straw poll. When I asked Sullivan, Romney's state advisor, if the campaign was paying for supporters' votes, he said, "No, absolutely not." But he admitted to recruiting people to the polls as so-called proxy delegates, which he said was a common practice among the campaigns. The campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also admitted some "friend-to-friend" recruitment of delegates, but denied paying any delegate fees. A few hours later, I tracked down Lynch, a gospel musician, at his home in Greenville.

"We were delegates of Mitt Romney, so we didn't have to pay," Lynch said. Like thousands of South Carolinians, Lynch and his wife, Melissa, have been bombarded with direct mail from the presidential candidates. He sent back a card from Romney, saying he would like to help. Sometime later, he said, Slick, the Romney aide, showed up at his door, and told him not to worry about the money. "He came over and we signed papers to be delegates, so we wouldn't have to pay the $15 fee," Lynch said. "Is there a problem?"

And again it paid off:

Among the 421 voters in Greenville County, Romney finished first with 132 votes, followed closely by Huckabee with 111. California Rep. Duncan Hunter got 87, Giuliani had 35 and Brownback received 19. McCain received 17 votes. Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo had five votes, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson got three, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore each got one. Only candidates who have established presidential exploratory committees were considered in the poll.

…

In Richland County, 126 delegates participated in the straw poll. Romney won with 39.7 percent of the vote. Brownback had 13.5 percent, Giuliani got 11.9 percent, and both McCain and Huckabee got 10.3 percent. Hunter got 7.9 percent and Tancredo received 3.2 percent. Cox and a write-in President Bush both received 1.6 percent.

And just as at CPAC, a closer look at the numbers suggests that while he may be winning straw polls, he is not necessarily winning over Republican voters:

About 700 people participated and awarded the candidates one, three or five points. Huckabee finished first with 3,522 points, Giuliani came in second with 3,161, followed by Hunter with 3,090 and Romney with 2,972. Brownback earned 2,931 points, Cox had 2,456 and McCain got 2,027.

Of course, perhaps these efforts by Romney and his campaign are entirely legitimate and just appear to be a bit suspicious – not unlike, say, the $25,000 he donated to the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which favorably reviewed his health-care policy, or the $25,919 his campaign paid to a company run by religious-right superlawyer Jay Sekulow, who endorsed Romney around the time that his campaign was hurting from revelations of ideological heresies in his past.

For five months, we have been keeping an eye on Sen. Sam Brownback’s opposition to Janet Neff, nominated by President Bush to serve on the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan, solely because she attended a lesbian commitment ceremony in 2002.  

In that time, Brownback has engaged in a series of stalling tactics and issued constantly-shifting demands in an attempt to prevent her confirmation: first placing a hold on her nomination, then demanding that she recuse herself from specific cases, then calling for a second hearing, then saying he just wanted an opportunity to debate and vote on her nomination on the Senate floor, then warning again that he wanted her to face a second hearing.

Because of Brownback’s stalling, Neff and a dozen other nominees failed to receive a Senate vote during the last session of Congress and their nominations were returned to the White House. 

Well, President Bush has now renominated Neff and Brownback is back to pledging that he won’t place a hold on her nomination this time around:

Brownback spokesman Brian Hart said the senator would not place another hold on Neff. Brownback intends to ask Senate leadership for a floor debate on her nomination and an up-or-down vote, he said.

Whether or nor Brownback upholds this pledge remains to be seen, but considering that the Right is unimpressed by the current crop of GOP presidential hopefuls and that his primary concern right now is how to gather support his long-shot presidential bid, there is an obvious temptation for him to try and carve out a niche as the Right’s standard-bearer, which is exactly what he appears to be doing: 

U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback introduced himself to state voters Monday as a "full-scale conservative" and made no apologies for his hardline stances against taxes, abortion and gay marriage.

Keep in mind that the only thing the Right seems to like more than fighting over judges is criticizing anything having to do with gays – and a battle over Neff could satisfy both of these urges. 

Perhaps in renominating Neff, President Bush has just handed Brownback an opportunity to rally the right-wing supporters that his campaign so desperately needs.   

Televangelist and Ohio “Patriot Pastor” leader Rod Parsley’s Center for Moral Clarity is urging the revival of long-dormant laws against adultery in states such as Michigan, where adultery is technically a felony, although no one has been prosecuted for 36 years.

In an e-mail update to its supporters, the Center noted with approval the remark of an appeals court judge that a Michigan statute criminalizing sex involving commission of a felony, when combined with the law making adultery a felony, could lead to life in prison. “Lawmakers and judges in Michigan are holding married couples accountable for their vows of fidelity,” touted CMC, adding that “The rest of the nation should take a look at the Michigan statute. Criminal laws are designed to force people to conform to certain acceptable standards of personal behavior. Most of society's code of conduct has its roots in the 10 Commandments.”

"Adultery is a violation of biblical instruction as well as an offense against the other partner in what should be a sacred relationship,” said Parsley. But given his history of involvement in Republican politics, where will that leave him in 2008, with frontrunning presidential candidates McCain and Giuliani, along with potential dark horse Gingrich, each allegedly carrying an adulterous past that, in Parsley’s world, would put them behind bars?

For months, we have been chronicling Sen. Sam Brownback’s one-man crusade against the nomination of Janet Neff because she attended a lesbian commitment ceremony in 2002.  Because of this and this alone, Brownback has been stalling her nomination to serve on the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan while constantly changing his explanations and demands.  

First he went to the Justice Department seeking a formal legal opinion while demanding that Neff answer various questions about her involvement in the ceremony and her views on marriage equality and civil unions.  When that didn’t satisfy him, he demanded that she recuse herself from any case dealing with these issues, but then backed down when he realized that his preferred solution “was so unusual as to be possibly unprecedented.” 

Brownback then demanded a second hearing for Neff so that he could grill her about these issues in person, because he failed to do so at her first hearing, which he had chaired.  But he didn’t get a second hearing because even the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee noted that “there is no precedent to give a (nominee) who has passed out of committee and being considered on the floor a second hearing.”

When it looked like Brownback was running out of options, he took to the pages of The Grand Rapids Press and changed his demands once again, stating that so long as he had an opportunity to voice his opposition on the Senate floor, he would let Neff’s nomination go forward:  

Should the president resubmit her nomination to the Senate during the 110th Congress, I will not block it. Instead, I am hopeful that leadership will agree to a debate and an up-or-down roll call vote on the nomination. If so, I will not reinstate the hold on Judge Neff.      

But speaking in Michigan this week, Brownback has signaled that he is not done obstructing Neff’s nomination and suddenly renewed his demand for a second hearing: 

Brownback said he won't stand in the way of the nomination of Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Janet Neff to the federal bench, as long as he has a chance to question her before the Judiciary Committee.

…

Brownback said he wants to have a "legal discussion of whatever she's willing to state about her views on the issue as it would come before her as a judge.

"I want to talk to her about any prejudices she may or may not have."

Neff’s nomination has yet to be resubmitted by the President, though it is expected to be forthcoming.  With Democrats in control of the Judiciary Committee, it is unlikely that Brownback is going to receive the second hearing he is calling for, since even the Republican-controlled committee wouldn’t grant him one. 

Given his sudden backtracking, Brownback is presumably hoping to use the Democrats’ refusal to convene a second hearing as an excuse to continue to block Neff’s nomination. Of course, this will only work if everyone forgets that only a month ago he pledged not to block her nomination so long as he had to opportunity to “debate and [cast] an up-or-down roll call vote on the nomination” on the Senate floor.  

But to date, the only one who appears to have forgotten that is Brownback himself.  

Sen. Sam Brownback is not giving up his fight against the nomination of Janet Neff and is now seeking to bring her before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a second hearing so that he can get her to provide the “facts” about her attendance at a lesbian commitment ceremony in 2002:

"I am not opposed to her getting a vote," Brownback said before a lunch with potential donors and supporters in Davenport. "I would like her to come back through committee so she can testify what took place, factually ... her legal views on same-sex marriage and her ability and willingness to be impartial." 

Brownback’s McCarthyesque desire to uncover every bit of information regarding Neff’s attendance at this ceremony is staggering.  What does he expect her to provide?  A guest list?  A copy of the gift registry?  

Neff explained her attendance at the ceremony, saying that one of the women was a close family friend and that “it was no different than being asked by my own daughters to be part of an important event in their lives.” But that did not satisfied Brownback, who demanded that she recuse herself from any cases involving the issue of same-sex unions as a condition of receiving a confirmation vote.  Earlier this week, Brownback appeared to back down from that position after realizing that his demand “was so unusual as to be possibly unprecedented” - though he is still defending his actions:

"If we don't testify on her views on same-sex marriage legally, then the only way I can see fit to do this is to have her recuse herself from a class of cases," Brownback said. "Then others stepped in and said 'you can't do that.' Well, that's the only option I had at that late hour."

President Bush nominated Janet Neff back in June and she received a Committee hearing in September – a hearing that was, coincidentally enough, chaired by Brownback himself:

Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin said Tuesday they support three nominees submitted by President Bush to the U.S. District Court for Michigan's Western District.

The three nominees - Grand Rapids lawyer Robert Jonker, Berrien County Circuit Judge Paul Maloney and Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Janet Neff - told the Senate Judiciary Committee that they would respect the principles of judicial restraint if confirmed.

Stabenow, introducing the appointees, said they bring "distinguished legal careers to the federal bench" and she hoped their nominations would reach the full Senate quickly.

"Senator Levin and I are bringing our full support, enthusiastic support, for the nominees," Stabenow told Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who led the hearing.

If Brownback was so concerned about Neff’s “willingness to be impartial,” perhaps he should have asked her about it when he chaired her confirmation hearing three months ago.  

We have been following Sen. Sam Brownback’s on-going hold of Janet Neff’s nomination to serve on the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan because Brownback is concerned that Neff attended a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple back in 2002.  

Brownback is stalling her nomination simply because she attended a commitment ceremony in her personal capacity, but now said that he will consider lifting his hold on her nomination – but only if she agrees to recuse herself from any case that deals with the issue of same-sex unions

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday he would lift his hold on a federal judicial nominee if she agrees to step aside from any case dealing with same-sex unions.

Brownback, a Republican raising money for a possible White House bid, has stalled the confirmation of Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Janet Neff to the federal bench because she once attended a lesbian commitment ceremony.

Neff has said she attended the ceremony as a friend of one of the two women, a longtime neighbor. She insisted in an Oct. 12 letter to Brownback that the ceremony had no legal effect and would not affect her ability to act fairly as a federal judge.

Brownback, a prominent gay marriage opponent, says he is concerned the incident colors her legal view on the constitutionality of allowing same-sex marriages.

It should be noted that Brownback voted to confirm William Pryor to a seat on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals despite Pryor’s open hostility to Supreme Court precedent and his extremist views on church-state separation, gay rights, and other matters

During an April 1997 rally, Pryor decried the decades-old precedent of Roe. He said, “I will never forget January 22, 1973, the day seven members of our highest court ripped the Constitution…” In a survey of state attorneys general on the issue, Pryor said, “Abortion is murder and Roe v. Wade is an abominable decision.” Pryor opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

One of Pryor’s most memorable efforts to move the law closer to his ideology is seen through Alabama Justice Roy Moore’s crusade to defy a federal court order and display the Ten Commandments in his courtroom and on other state property. Moore parlayed his refusal to remove such a display, even after a court ordered him to do so, into a successful campaign for the state’s top judgeship. There, he again displayed his Ten Commandments, this time on a granite monument in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery.

William Pryor has backed Judge Moore, even though the judge’s actions plainly violate the Constitution’s requirement of the separation of church and state.

… Speaking at a rally in support of Judge Moore in 1997, Pryor said, “God has chosen, through his son Jesus Christ, this time and this place for all Christians…to save our country and save our courts.”

Brownback made no such demands that Pryor recuse himself from any case involving the Ten Commandments or reproductive choice, even though there was no doubt about Pryor’s views on the issues and how he would rule in such cases – yet, Brownback is now demanding that Neff agree to recuse herself from any case involving the issue of same-sex unions merely because she attended a commitment ceremony.