People for the American Way is not my favorite lefty interest group, at least when it comes to judicial nominations - they often strike me as shrill and as playing...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 16, 2005 | Alito's explanations are getting worseLast week, the big story on the Alito Supreme Court nomination was his participation in a case involving Vanguard when he apparently told the Senate he wouldn't hear those cases,...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 14, 2005 | Alito and choiceSo it turns out that Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito said, on a 1985 job application, that he didn't believe that the Constitution should protect a right to abortion. The...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 11, 2005 | Alito's 1990 Senate questionnaireAn emerging issue in the Alito Supreme Court nomination has been his participation in cases involving parties such as Vanguard (in which he had invested a substantial amount of money)...
By David | Read Article | Comments (4)
November 01, 2005 | It's officialAlito will be confirmed. The stars are never...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
The Alito that MoveOn didn't mentionThis darned judge: Wrote an opinion prohibiting the use of any state-owned facilities for abortions, possibly right down to the public water supply - and in the process looked forward...
By David | Read Article | Comments (6)
October 31, 2005 | One liberal's positive view of AlitoKatherine (Kate) Pringle is a partner in a New York law firm. She is also a progressive Democrat who was heavily involved in John Kerry's presidential campaign. And after she...
By David | Read Article | Comments (13)
Lefties: hold your fire on AlitoI have no position yet on what the Democrats should do about Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. But I spoke this morning to a lawyer whom I know...
By David | Read Article | Comments (8)
Bush wants Alito confirmed this yearPresident Bush, in announcing Judge Samuel Alito's nomination, has urged the Senate to hold a vote on Alito by the end of this year. That seems very unlikely - last...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
Alito picked to replace O'ConnorFederal appeals court judge Samuel Alito, Jr., currently sitting on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, will be named this morning to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 27, 2005 | You tell 'em, HarrySenate minority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on this morning's withdrawal of Harriet Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court:The radical right wing of the Republican Party killed the Harriet Miers nomination....
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 25, 2005 | The 'Living' Constitution: ResolvedThere has been a lot of fuss lately about two approaches to Constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court. Original intent supporters think the justices should transport themselves back in time...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 21, 2005 | Fitzgerald goes online; Wilsons go to courtThe indispensable Raw Story points to two remarkable developments in Novak-Plame-Libby-Rove-gate today. First, WaPo's Dan Froomkin notes that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has launched an official web site on the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 20, 2005 | "The White House is so irrational that who knows?"So says one of the strategists working with the White House to shepherd the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination through the Senate, as reported by Byron York on the National...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
October 12, 2005 | Blowing the callSo new Chief Justice John Roberts says he wants to be an umpire. Fair enough, I guess. I just hope he does a much, much better job than the umpires...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
The staffers are revoltingConservative opposition to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court continues to mount. The NY Times reports that aides to 6 of the 10 Republican Senators on the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
October 09, 2005 | Tax shelter sleaze at Miers' Texas law firmTaxProf Blog reports that while Harriet Miers was managing partner of Locke, Liddell and Sapp in Dallas, the firm provided dubious legal opinions supporting the legality of sleazy tax shelters...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
October 08, 2005 | Espionage Act now front and center in Novak-Plame-gateFor the longest time, almost everyone, including people who know a whole lot about Novak-Plame-gate, were assuming that the only criminal statute that might have been violated by outing Valerie...
By David | Read Article | Comments (8)
October 06, 2005 | The Espionage Act - at last!This story in the NY Times is, for the most part, similar to a number of other reports indicating that Karl Rove has been summoned back to the Novak-Plame-gate grand...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
"Is she the most qualified person? Clearly, the answer to that is 'no.'"Thus spake Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) of Harriet Miers today. And Lott's direct contradiction of what President Bush said yesterday was, apparently, one of the nicer things that conservatives said...
By David | Read Article | Comments (4)
October 04, 2005 | Bush has lost the trust of the conservative intelligentsiaMaybe they were never really with him. But it's clear that conservative elites are abandoning George W. Bush in droves over the Miers nomination. Two recent examples: Professor Bainbridge, a...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
October 03, 2005 | Miers on gay rights (maybe)Americablog has gotten a hold of this document which appears to be a gay rights-related questionnaire that Harriet Miers answered when she ran for Dallas City Council in 1989. (ACSblog...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
A despondent conservative sums it up nicelyTodd Zywicki, a conservative law prof and blogger at Volokh with whom I disagree on just about everything, is very unhappy about Harriet Miers' nomination. In this post, however, he...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
Is this what Bush was expecting?Today's reactions to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court have been most interesting. Right blogistan is, in general, apoplectic. Check out the icky Michelle Malkin's roundup of...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
Harriet Miers' Enron problemIt appears that the right-leaning but Bush-disliking Professor Bainbridge was the first to notice this extraordinary tidbit from Harriet Miers' past (a hat tip also to David Sirota at HuffPost)....
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Look for a HUGE fight over Miers documentsHarriet Miers has never been a judge, and her law practice appears to have consisted entirely of representing ordinary commercial interests.* There is, therefore, one and only one source for...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
One analyst: Miers will not be confirmedTom Goldstein, a respected lawyer, Supreme Court analyst for NPR, and host of the excellent SCOTUSblog, has predicted that the Senate will reject Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court...
By David | Read Article | Comments (5)
Random early reaction to Miers nomination: Harrold Carswell redux?The folks at the right-wing Confirm Them site are despondent over the Miers nomination, viewing this as a historic betrayal of the cause to remake the judiciary. The fear, I...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Harriet Miers will be named to replace Sandra Day O'ConnorNPR and other sources are reporting that President Bush will name his current White House Counsel, Harriet Miers, to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. WHO??? Like everyone...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 22, 2005 | Judiciary Committee approves Roberts 13-5John Roberts picked up the votes of three Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee - Leahy (Vt.), Kohl (Wis.), and Feingold (Wis.), along with all of the Republicans, in the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
September 21, 2005 | The worst possible strategy on RobertsOK, so it's not looking like the Dems are going to adopt my everyone vote yes, but with a warning strategy. Nor does it look like there will be united...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 20, 2005 | Reid's strategy on Roberts: is there a better way?So Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Democratic leader, has announced that he intends to vote against the confirmation of John Roberts for Chief Justice. The liberal interest groups that have...
By David | Read Article | Comments (6)
September 18, 2005 | WaPo backs Roberts; NYT doesn'tThe Washington Post's editorial board has come out in favor of John Roberts' confirmation, and the New York Times has come out against. Some would argue that this is all...
By David | Read Article | Comments (11)
September 17, 2005 | And we should care because ...?In a move sure to dramatically affect John Roberts' prospects of being confirmed by the Senate as the next Chief Justice of the United States - NOT! - New York...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 13, 2005 | Roberts begins the stonewallSen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) has just finished questioning Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, including some questions about his views on previously-decided cases. And, unfortunately, Roberts refused to answer those questions....
By David | Read Article | Comments (7)
September 11, 2005 | Katrina: the legal wrangling begins... and it ain't gonna be pretty. The Financial Times reports that losses from the monster hurricane are now estimated to reach $125 billion, with insured losses between $40 billion...
By David | Read Article | Comments (11)
September 05, 2005 | Some personal notes on Chief Justice RehnquistSeveral former Rehnquist clerks and others who knew the Chief well have posted remembrances of him. I was an O'Connor clerk, so I had only limited interaction with the Chief....
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
Handicapping the O'Connor replacementAs I predicted might happen, President Bush has undertaken a switcheroo whereby he will withdraw John Roberts' nomination to replace for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and will instead submit his...
By David | Read Article | Comments (6)
September 04, 2005 | Will Roberts replace Rehnquist?One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind when I learned last night of Chief Justice Rehnquist's death was whether President Bush would convert John Roberts' nomination to replace...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 03, 2005 | RIP William H. RehnquistThe Chief Justice of the United States has died. Much, much more to come, of course. For now, our thoughts are with his...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
August 23, 2005 | Too smart for their own goodThe Volokh Conspiracy is a group blawg (i.e., law-related blog) composed mainly of right-leaning law professors. Its founder (Eugene Volokh, a 1st Amendment, intellectual property, and cyberlaw specialist) is an...
By David | Read Article | Comments (6)
August 11, 2005 | NARAL's anti-Roberts smearThere's been no shortage of hoopla over NARAL's 30-second ad (video available in several formats here) trying to link Supreme Court nominee and then-government lawyer John Roberts' position in the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (8)
August 04, 2005 | A missed opportunityI can understand why they're so cautious. But a little strategic thinking could go a long way here. I am referring to Lambda Legal's exceedingly hesitant reaction to today's news...
By David | Read Article | Comments (7)
Sorry, Karl: the Espionage Act is alive and wellToday a Virginia US Attorney announced indictments for three individuals involved in the AIPAC scandal. I haven't followed this story very closely, so I have nothing to say about the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
John Roberts helped advance the homosexual agendaThe LA Times reports today that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts gave substantial behind-the-scenes assistance, pro bono, to the activists who asked the Supreme Court to overturn Colorado's infamous Amendment...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
August 02, 2005 | Could Bush pull a Bolton with Roberts?President Bush's unilateral installation of John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations was an exercise of his constitutional authority to bypass the usual Senate confirmation process for presidential appointments...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
July 28, 2005 | Disgraced ex-aide to Hatch and Frist defends the Federalist Society, makes nice with former bossToday's Opinion Journal, the Wall Street Journal's on-line collection of far-right opinion pieces, contains a hilarious piece by Manuel Miranda. It's about the Federalist Society, which as you may recall...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
July 25, 2005 | Maybe Roberts isn't a slam-dunk confirm after allJonathan Turley in the LA Times has picked up on something that, if true [see the Updates below for more on that], does actually call into question whether John Roberts...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
Is it too early to call it "FederalistSocietyGate"?Curiouser and curiouser. Supreme Court nominee Judge Roberts' apparent non-membership in the Federalist Society (the conservative networking group for lawyers, membership in which has become de rigueur for right-leaning lawyers...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
July 21, 2005 | OK, that was fun. Now back to the important stuff.Well, all this John Roberts for the Supreme Court business has been interesting. But let's face it - he's going to be confirmed, and probably in a walk. The requisite...
By David | Read Article | Comments (5)
Roberts NOT a Federalist Society member!The Federalist Society has become the pre-eminent legal fraternity for conservatives and libertarians. It has pretensions to being a think-tank, but really, it's a gigantic networking club - and it...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
July 20, 2005 | John Roberts, day 2SCOTUSblog has this summary of John Roberts' significant opinions (such as they are) on the D.C. Circuit. Not a whole lot to learn there, I'm afraid. His paper trail as...
By David | Read Article | Comments (8)
July 19, 2005 | John Roberts is nominated for the Supreme CourtThe President is currently announcing his nomination of Judge John Roberts, now of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
Tonight's the nightThe White House has said that President Bush will announce his nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor tonight at 9 pm in a televised address. Rumors are swirling fast...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
July 16, 2005 | But what does he MEAN by that?President Bush, in his radio address today, spoke of his approach to nominating Sandra Day O'Connor's successor as follows:My nominee will be a fair-minded individual who represents the mainstream of...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
July 15, 2005 | Rehnquist to reporters: I'm staying, so piss off!Chief Justice William Rehnquist released the following statement today after being released from the hospital:I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement. I...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
July 13, 2005 | Rove, Plame, and espionageThere's been lots of yakkity-yak, here and elsewhere, about whether Karl Rove (or anyone else who leaked Valerie Plame's CIA identity to the press) has really committed a crime. I'd...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
July 07, 2005 | The NYT's flawed defense of Judith MillerToday's entire NY Times editorial page is devoted to a lengthy (yawn) defense of Judith Miller's right to keep her sources confidential and a variety of attacks on the Novak-Plame-gate...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Judith Miller explains why she is, and should be, in jailJudith Miller had this to say before being shackled and taken to a D.C.-area federal prison this evening:The freest and fairest societies are not only those with independent judiciaries, but...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
July 06, 2005 | Novak-Plame-gate reporters part waysJudith Miller is off to jail. Matthew Cooper is off to testify to the Novak-Plame-gate grand jury. Cooper told the court today that he received in somewhat dramatic fashion a...
By David | Read Article | Comments (4)
I agree with President Bush! Hell freezes over!Regular readers will be well aware that I am not exactly a big W fan. But I have to give him credit for his recent comments regarding the process of...
By David | Read Article | Comments (6)
July 05, 2005 | Novak-Plame-gate reporters still potentially on the hookThe NY Times reports that Time Inc.'s decision to hand over its notes to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may not keep reporters Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller out of jail...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
July 04, 2005 | All roads lead to RoveNewsweek reports that the repulsive Karl Rove figures prominently in the emails and notes that Time Inc. has agreed to turn over to Novak-Plame-gate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. It seems clear,...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
July 03, 2005 | Op-eds worth reading on Justice O'ConnorNot surprisingly, Justice O'Connor's retirement announcement has sent the punditocracy into overdrive. No one could possibly read everything being published about her tenure, her jurisprudence, or her replacement - nor...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
July 02, 2005 | The most powerful woman in America decides to retireI had thought that the Fourth of July weekend might be an opportunity for a little blogging holiday (a blogoliday, if you will). No such luck. This news is big...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
June 30, 2005 | Breaking: Time Inc. to hand over documents in Novak-Plame-gateTime Inc. has issued a press release indicating that it has decided to comply with the order of federal judge Thomas Hogan requiring it to turn over documents, presumably including...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
Novak-Plame-gate update: "The time has come, the Walrus said."The federal judge in charge of Novak-Plame-gate, Thomas Hogan, spoke the quoted words in the title of this post in a hearing today in which he essentially told Judith Miller...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
June 27, 2005 | Ten Commandments updateAs I predicted, the Supreme Court upheld the Texas display of the Ten Commandments, but struck down the display in Kentucky. I didn't quite get the votes right, though -...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Reporters lose in Novak-Plame-gateThe Supreme Court denied review of the D.C. Circuit's determination that reporters Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper must either testify in the Novak-Plame-gate affair or be held in contempt of...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
A big day at the Supreme CourtToday is the last day of the Supreme Court's 2004-2005 term, and as always, several really big cases will be announced. The ones that will probably get the most attention,...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
June 24, 2005 | Et tu, NY Times?The fallout from yesterday's Supreme Court decision on eminent domain continues (Kelo v. City of New London). Today the NY Times editorial page weighs in, describing the Court's action as...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
June 23, 2005 | When good judges go badToday the Supreme Court decided, by a 5-4 vote, that your city council can decide that it would rather have a Wal-Mart occupying the land that your home and the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (9)
June 18, 2005 | Good riddance to bad legal rubbishSo Rhode Island is considering getting rid of the last vestiges of its colonial era blue laws, which used to prohibit most commerce on Sundays, but which now restrict most...
By David | Read Article | Comments (10)
June 15, 2005 | Sorry guys, it really is "commerce"The issue in Gonzales v. Raich, the Supreme Court's medical marijuana case, was not whether people who need marijuana to treat otherwise untreatable medical problems should be allowed to use...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
June 14, 2005 | Scalia has REALLY pissed off the libertarians!Check this out, by a constitutional scholar at the ultra-libertarian and generally quite conservative Cato Institute, regarding Justice Scalia's vote in favor of federal authority to regulate medical marijuana. Money...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
June 13, 2005 | Endangered Species Act apparently safe, for nowWithout comment or recorded dissent, the Supreme Court today denied review of a case from the 5th Circuit, called GDF Realty Investments, Ltd. v. Norton, that raised the question whether...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
"Young" libertarians have a field day at the Globe op-ed pageToday's Globe op-ed page features two columns, each from a distinctly libertarian point of view, and each by an author whose last name is Young. I have a couple of...
By David | Read Article | Comments (5)
June 08, 2005 | New York Times misses the medical marijuana boatThere is a lot of confusion out there as to what the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision in Gonzales v. Raich, the medical marijuana case, actually means. That confusion has now...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
June 06, 2005 | Supreme Court upholds federal regulation of medical marijuanaThe Supreme Court has held, 6-3, that federal drug laws that outlaw the possession of marijuana trump state laws allowing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. (The case is...
By David | Read Article | Comments (4)
June 01, 2005 | Going too farSo the boys who requested and received oral sex from a 15 year old girl at Milton Academy have been charged with statutory rape (which makes it a crime to...
By David | Read Article | Comments (12)
May 27, 2005 | Another indication that Chief Justice Rehnquist is retiringVirtually every Supreme Court observer is assuming that Chief Justice Rehnquist's ongoing and apparently quite serious bout with thyroid cancer will result in his retirement at the end of the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
May 25, 2005 | Priscilla Owen confirmed 56-43The Senate has just confirmed Priscilla Owen to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. The vote was 56-43. If I heard the clerk's roll...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
A good post on Janice Rogers BrownThis post at ACSblog explains that the Supreme Court's recent unanimous opinion in a takings case (Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A.) thoroughly rejects the extremist property rights view espoused by Janice...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
Looking bad for medical marijuanaSCOTUSblog has this interesting post about the cases that remain to be decided in the current Supreme Court term. Of particular note is that it seems almost certain that Justice...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
May 17, 2005 | ACLU stings Silver Ring Thing Bling-blingSo, the ACLU is suing the US government over giving funds to the Silver Ring Thing, an abstinence-only education group that also has a heavy dose of religious proselytization: they...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (10)
Bad sex? So sue me!Link. The facts: a man and woman were engaged in sexual intercourse, during which he, well, broke his penis. He sued, claiming that his partner was negligent because she failed...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005 | Running naked through the streets of Fall RiverThe Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided yesterday that Fall River's ordinance banning all forms of public nudity is unconstitutional. The SJC noted that the US Supreme Court rejected a First...
By David | Read Article | Comments (2)
May 03, 2005 | Matthew Cooper opts to change his luck in Novak-Plame-gate appealAccording to Editor Publisher (which has done fine reporting on this story), Matthew Cooper, one of the reporters facing jail time for refusing to divulge confidential sources in the Novak-Plame-gate...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)
April 25, 2005 | "Novak lied" theory apparently gathering strengthFor some time, the big mystery in the Novak-Plame-gate scandal has been why douchebag of liberty Robert Novak has not been forced to reveal his source. Novak, as you'll recall,...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
April 20, 2005 | Novak-Plame-gate reporters head to the SupremesJudith Miller and Matthew Cooper, the reporters facing jail time for their refusal disclose confidential sources in the Valerie Plame affair, have lost their bid for en banc review in...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
April 16, 2005 | A post about Justice Scalia that has nothing to do with sodomyAs you may have heard, Justice Scalia recently spoke at NYU Law School, where a student asked him whether he sodomizes his wife. I have nothing to add to the...
By David | Read Article | Comments (0)<