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Study: Federal Judges Appointed by Bush Are Most Conservative

A study conducted by three political scientists has shown that federal judges appointed by President Bush are the most conservative on civil rights and civil liberties. The study, which analyzed over 70,000 court cases found in the Federal Supplement’s database, warned that Bush’s re-election would give US courts a strong conservative tilt that could last for decades, according to Reuters. Bush judges made what the study’s authors considered liberal decisions only 26.5 percent of the time in civil liberties cases, compared to 37.9 percent for Nixon appointees, 32.3 percent for Reagan appointees, and 32.2 percent for appointees of Bush’s father. Examples of civil rights cases include those pertaining to abortion, freedom of speech, right to privacy, gay rights, and race relations. Richard Carp, one of the study’s authors and political scientist at the University of Houston, told Reuters last week, “An average president puts in about a third of the federal judiciary in two terms, so this really is a watershed year in terms of what happens.” Kenneth Manning of University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and Ronald Stidham of Appalachian State University co-authored the study, which was published by the American Judicature Society. TAKE ACTION to prevent Bush from stacking federal courts with reactionary judges

Sources:

Reuters 9/9/04; University of Houston Press Release 8/26/04

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