The ongoing fight over judicial nominations continues to dominate discussions on the Hill, but Bush only dealt with the issue briefly in last night’s press conference. But when the president did receive a question on it, the response was rather odd.
“I think people are opposing my nominees because they don’t like the judicial philosophy of the people I’ve nominated. Some would like to see judges legislate from the bench. That’s not my view of the proper role of a judge.”
It’s not? The president is sometimes a little slow in keeping up with the news, but he may want to take a moment to review the records of two of his most controversial judicial nominees.
For example, if Bush is worried about judges “legislating from the bench,” he’ll definitely want to pull the nomination of Priscilla Owen. After all, Alberto Gonzales, Bush’s own attorney general, has condemned her for “unconscionable” judicial activism.
During their time together on the Texas Supreme Court, [Gonzalez] repeatedly criticized Pricilla Owen — another judge that Bush re-nominated — for ignoring the law. In one case, relating to requirements for minors to “judicially bypass� parental consent requirements for abortion, Gonzalez characterized Owen’s narrow view of the statute as “directly contradicted� by the legislative history and “an unconscionable act of judicial activism.� In another case, where Owen would have effectively rewritten the law to protect manufactures of products that cause injury, Gonzales called Owen’s opinion an attempt to “judicially amend the statute.� Gonzales also joined an opinion that described an Owen’s dissent, which would have allowed certain private land owners to exempt themselves from environmental regulations, as “nothing more than inflammatory rhetoric.�
And, as Matt Yglesias noted, Janice Rogers Brown will have to go, as well.
As the Alliance for Justice reported:
Justice Brown’s disdain for government runs so deep that she urges “conservativeâ€? judges to invalidate legislation that expands the role of government, saying that it “inevitably transform[s]… a democracy … into a kleptocracy.â€? Following her own “pro-activistâ€? advice, Justice Brown — always in dissent — uses constitutional provisions or defies the legislature’s intent to restrict or invalidate laws she doesn’t like, such as California’s anti-discrimination statute (which she condemns as protecting only “narrowâ€? personal interests), hotel development fees intended to preserve San Francisco’s affordable housing supply, rent control ordinances, statutory fees for manufacturers that put lead-based products into the stream of commerce, and a false advertising law applied to companies making false claims about their workplace practices to boost sales.
Justice Brown’s colleagues on the court have repeatedly remarked on her disrespect for such legislative policy judgments, criticizing her, in different cases, for “imposing … [a] personal theory of political economy on the people of a democratic stateâ€?; asserting “such an activist role for the courtsâ€?; “quarrel[ing]… not with our holding in this case, but with this court’s previous decision … and, even more fundamentally, with the Legislature itselfâ€?; and “permit[ting] a court … to reweigh the policy choices that underlay a legislative or quasi-legislative classification or to reevaluate the efficacy of the legislative measure.â€?
I’ll give the president one thing. When Bush said, “[P]eople are opposing my nominees because they don’t like the judicial philosophy of the people I’ve nominated,” he was absolutely right.