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Bush Nominates Two More Right-Wing Candidates for Federal Judgeships

In his continued effort to pack the courts with far-right ideologues, President Bush recently nominated two more candidates to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals “whose views seem well to the right of the legal and political mainstream,” the New York Times wrote in an editorial. “I’m not prejudging them, but from what I know, they both look like they’re coming straight out of the ideological judicial activist factory,” Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) told the Associated Press.

One candidate, Brett Kavanaugh, 38, who acted as associate counsel under Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, has absolutely no judicial experience. Best known for his efforts to impeach President Clinton, Kavanaugh is currently working as staff secretary to Bush. The other, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, is an African-American woman who is best known for her opposition to affirmative action. In 2000, Brown wrote a decision that interprets Proposition 209 – the California voter initiative that bars racial preferences – that was described by the court’s chief justice as “a serious distortion of history,” wrote the Times. Brown also opposed the California high court’s 1997 decision that allowed teenagers to obtain abortions without the consent of a parent or a judge, according to Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report.

Kavanaugh and Brown have been nominated to a court that is generally considered the second most powerful court in the nation and a steppingstone to the US Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans filed a cloture petition on the nomination of William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals with a vote expected tomorrow.

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Sources:

New York Times 7/29/03; Associated Press 7/26/03; Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report 7/28/03; Atlanta Journal-Constitution 7/29/03; Washington Post 7/26/03

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