Saturday, March 15, 2003

filibuster Owen

From this article on law.com, regarding the President's re-nomination of Texas Supreme Court Justice Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Fifth Circuit, we see commentators giving two extraordinarily lame arguments in her favor:

(1) that the Fifth Circuit is already very conservative, so (being very conservative) she would fit perfectly. I agree with the first clause wholeheartedly; the Fifth Circuit is a very very "conservative" court, in the current political meaning of the word "conservative". See here, and also note yesterday's en banc decision of the Fifth Circuit, described by Howard Bashman here. The Fifth Circuit needs a more moderate balance, not a further entrenchment of its current position.

(2) that she is "a nice girl from Baylor."

Nice girl from Baylor or not, her pattern of rulings is so predictably "conservative" (right-wing, that is) -- finding her often dissenting even from decisions of the Republican-dominated Texas Supreme Court, and staking out a more far-out position than her Republican colleagues -- that Senate Democrats should do everything allowed by Senate procedures to stop her from gaining life tenure on the federal bench. See TalkLeft for further information.

posted by sam 6:55 AM 0 comments

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