TPMDC U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court
Leahy Floats Idea Of Bringing Former Justices Back To SCOTUS Bench
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and current Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer.
Sen. Patrick Leahy has been floating the idea of bringing former Supreme Court justices back to the bench to help decide cases where current justices might have conflicts of interest.
It's an intriguing concept in the very early idea stages, according Leahy's aides on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy (D-VT) raised the idea of legislation allowing for the SCOTUS switcharoo first in the National Journal and again in more detail to the Washington Post.
Of course, the former justices in question would be more likely to side with the court's liberals.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (22) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Elena Kagan, John Paul Stevens, Patrick Leahy, Senate Judiciary Committee, Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court
GOPers Who Slammed Marshall's Activism Can't Name A Case Typifying It
Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Republicans raised eyebrows yesterday when they criticized the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, as a way to attack nominee Elena Kagan, his former clerk. One would think that, to avoid any appearance of racial dog-whistling, the senators attacking Marshall's record would be able to name the decisions or opinions with which they so vociferously disagreed.
After the hearing broke last night, TPMDC asked three of the top Republicans on the Judiciary Committee which of Marshall's opinions best exemplified his activism. And while two of the three were careful to praise Marshall the man, none of them could name a single case.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (130) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Elena Kagan, Jeff Sessions, Orrin Hatch, Republicans, Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Republicans, Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, Tom Coburn, U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court vacancy
Supreme Selection: What Obama's Reading
President Barack Obama reads in the Treaty Room Office of the Private Residence
President Obama thoroughly scoured files of Supreme Court nominee shortlisters in 2009, and is getting his reading in now as he considers contenders for the latest vacancy.
Staff work is going on behind the scenes as chief counsel Bob Bauer and his team prepared thick documents with research on potential nominees. An official told me that staff is reaching out to "a broad cross-section" outside groups such as the American Constitution Society and other judicial advocacy organizations as a sort of listening tour. Obama also huddled with the top judiciary panel members and Senate leaders this week before starting a phone call blitz to Democrats and Republicans on the committee.
Aides say advocacy group lobbying won't influence Obama, and that he wants to drill down into his research files on his own. He likes to do such reading late at night in his White House study. He's likely to bring some material on his nominees with him to read this weekend as he vacations with his family in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (13) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Presidential vacation, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, Supreme Court vacancy, U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court vacancy
Top Judiciary GOPer Signals Health Care Could Be Next Court Nominee's Litmus Test
The U.S. Supreme Court building and President Barack Obama
Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee tasked with hearings for President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, today offered a strong hint about the direction Republicans may take toward the president's choice.
Sessions (R-AL) used his statement to criticize Obama's "empathy" standard for selecting Sonia Sotomayor last year for the high court.
But one sentence especially stood out: "There is much at stake, as the court's interpretation of the Constitution in the coming years could significantly affect the implementation of domestic polices approved by the president and Congress over the past year."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (166) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Health care lawsuits, Jeff Sessions, Judicial nominees, Senate Judiciary Committee, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, Supreme Court vacancy, U.S. Supreme Court, White House
Supreme Court vacancy
Obama Lauds Retiring Justice Stevens And Pledges To Name Nominee Within 'Weeks'
President Barack Obama
President Obama this afternoon commended retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens for being an "impartial guardian of the law" and said he will move "quickly" to name a nominee to fill his position on the high court.
Speaking to reporters in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said selecting Supreme Ccourt nominees are "among my most serious responsibilities as president." He said he will seek a nominee "in the coming weeks" with "similar qualities" to Stevens.
Obama said he spoke with Stevens this afternoon to thank him for his service, adding that at 89, the justice "leaves his position at the top of his game." The president told reporters that when President Ford nominated Stevens he sought someone who was not ideological, pragmatic and "committed above all to justice, integrity and the rule of law," and said he agrees that's the right approach.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (18) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, John Paul Stevens, Supreme Court, Supreme Court vacancy, U.S. Supreme Court, White House
Supreme Court vacancy
A Supreme Spring? Everyone Aiming For Quick Nomination Process
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden with US Supreme Court
President Obama moved swiftly last year in nominating Sonia Sotomayor for a vacancy on the court in less than a month, and Democrats are pushing for him to operate on the same time line now that he'll be filling Justice John Paul Stevens' seat.
White House aides last year said Obama, who learned of the retirement this morning on a flight back from Prague, would definitely consider others from his 2009 short list should there be another vacancy. When the White House wrote a new policy releasing names of visitors for the first time, the administration carved out an exception to allow potential nominees to slip by. Aides at the time specifically cited the Supreme Court nomination process as why they would allow for the exception to the new transparency policy.
Justice David Souter announced his retirement May 1, 2009 and Obama nominated Sotomayor May 26. The confirmation fight played out over the summer, with a final vote Aug. 6, and she was seated with plenty of time to help get settled and to participate in the choosing of the court's fall caseload. Congressional sources told me they'd like to see Stevens and the White House operate on the same time frame. One way for him to do that would be looking at his list from last year.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (13) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, John Paul Stevens, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, Supreme Court vacancy, U.S. Supreme Court
Sonia Sotomayor
Sotomayor Vote Delayed Until July 28
The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court on July 28, a week from today. The vote was originally scheduled for today, but Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) granted a delay request made by Republicans.
Leahy reportedly said he was disappointed in the stall, but still expects her to be on the bench for the Supreme Court's fall session. Sen. Jeff Sessions, the committee's ranking Republican, said he expects Sotomayor to be confirmed by early August.
In other news, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has announced she will vote for Sotomayor's confirmation. She is the fourth Republican to do so, after Olympia Snowe, Richard Lugar and Mel Martinez.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (9) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Jeff Sessions, Patrick Leahy, Senate Judiciary Committee, Sonia Sotomayor, Susan Collins, U.S. Supreme Court
Frank Ricci
SJC Changes Ricci Affiliation After Complaints From ConnectiCOSH
The witness list on the Senate Judiciary Committee web site has been changed to identify Frank Ricci as a member of the New Haven Fire Department following a complaint from the organization he claimed to represent.
Two board members of the Connecticut Council for Occupational Safety and Health sent a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy explaining that Ricci is not, as he states in his bio, the director of fire services for the council. He had been identified as such in official witness lists for Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings.
"It made it appear as if he was speaking for ConnectiCOSH, which he does not," said Judy Sanger, a board member, in a phone interview this afternoon. Sanger said the board doesn't have a position on Sotomayor's confirmation and has not discussed it.
"We've never talked about it, so it's absurd to be claiming that you're representing the occupational safety and health community. He's not authorized to do it," she said.
"We don't want to be identified with" opposing Sotomayor, she said. "It's not what we're doing here."
Sanger confirmed to us that Ricci is not and has never been an employee of, or spokesperson for, ConnectiCOSH. She said the council has "certainly worked with him over the years," work including firefighter safety initiatives such as getting better rehab after injuries.
"We have no wish to deny the good things he has done," Sanger said, but "he's not speaking for ConnectiCOSH here."
Ricci's lawyer, Karen Torre, did not immediately return a call for comment.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (1) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Frank Ricci, Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Supreme Court
Sonia Sotomayor
Conservative Activist Revels in Court Ruling Against "Sotomayer"
Conservative reactions to the Supreme Court's Ricci ruling are trickling in. Wendy Long, the leading face of the Sotomayor opposition, posted a press release on the web site for the Judicial Confirmation Network. The best part is the misspelling of Sonia Sotomayor's name (Long went for Sotomayer).
There's also this mystifying gem:
"Frank Ricci finally got his day in court, despite the judging of Sonia Sotomayor, which all nine Justices of U.S. Supreme Court have now confirmed was in error."
The ruling, of course, was 5-4. Oh, and this:
"What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of a pilot error resulting in a bad plane crash. And now the pilot is being offered to fly Air Force One." That's poetry, folks.
Check it out here, and let us know if Long fixes her spelling.
Late update: Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a member of the Judiciary Committee, took a shot at Sotomayor without calling her by name. "The Second Circuit should have recognized the serious and unique issues this case raised and given it the thorough treatment it deserved," he said in a statement.
Here's the full statement:
"The Supreme Court today correctly held that race-based employment decisions must be justified by facts, not fear," said Hatch. "These firefighters, who worked long and hard for it, were denied the chance for promotion because of their race."In the twenty-first century, race discrimination requires more justification than the fear of being sued. The Second Circuit should have recognized the serious and unique issues this case raised and given it the thorough treatment it deserved."
PERMALINK | COMMENTS (7) | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)
Topics: Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Supreme Court
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