October 2009

Senator Reid faces pressure from some left-leaning groups on Justice pick

October 30, 2009  
The Hill


National liberal groups are pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to act on one of President Obama’s most controversial nominees.

Nearly 40 organizations have called on Reid to schedule a vote on Dawn Johnsen, Obama’s pick to lead the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which is tasked with providing legal advice to the president.

Another judicial radical

October 27, 2009  
The Washington Times


Another day, another Obama nominee who doesn't appear to love America. Another nominee who thinks the United States is inherently racist. Another nominee who thinks that judges should let their "ethnic and racial background" have an effect on how they conduct their trials. President Obama's radicalization of American government needs to be stopped.

In this case, the nominee is Northern California federal district court nominee Edward Chen, forwarded by the Senate Judiciary Committee to the full Senate last Friday on a party-line vote. Mr. Chen is currently a federal magistrate in San Francisco, and a lawyer long active with the American Civil Liberties Union before that.

Leahy's Bench Press

October 12, 2009   |   Filed In:
Wall Street Journal


Under the Senate Judiciary Committee as run by Patrick Leahy, even plans on which the two parties have previously agreed to collaborate disintegrate into partisanship. Witness his effort to expand the federal judiciary now that President Obama can pick the new judges.

The original version of the Federal Judgeship Act, proposed in March 2008 and co-sponsored by Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, was supposed to give both parties a say in the composition of an expanded federal judiciary. Then the election results would determine which party's President got to nominate the judges. The idea was to pass a plan and then have it go into effect after the inauguration of the election winner in 2008. It had bipartisan support.