{"id":4661,"date":"2005-07-11T11:28:34","date_gmt":"2005-07-11T15:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4661.html"},"modified":"2005-07-11T11:28:34","modified_gmt":"2005-07-11T15:28:34","slug":"sensenbrenner-unhinged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/sensenbrenner-unhinged\/","title":{"rendered":"Sensenbrenner unhinged"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friend Darrell<\/a> alerted me to an incredible story that ran over the weekend about House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and his bizarre intervention<\/a> in a Chicago drug case. At this point, I think it’s fair to say Sensenbrenner has just about lost it.<\/p>\n

In an extraordinary move, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee privately demanded last month that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago change its decision in a narcotics case because he didn’t believe a drug courier got a harsh enough prison term.<\/p>\n

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), in a five-page letter dated June 23 to Chief Judge Joel Flaum, asserted that a June 16 decision by a three-judge appeals court panel was wrong.<\/p>\n

He demanded “a prompt response” as to what steps Flaum would take “to rectify the panel’s actions” in a case where a drug courier in a Chicago police corruption case received a 97-month prison sentence instead of the at least 120 months required by a drug-conspiracy statute.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I realize congressional Republicans have largely given up on antiquated principles of our democracy such the separation of powers, but this is ridiculous. Here we have a lawmaker who disagreed with a court’s sentence for a low-level drug pusher, demanding that an independent branch of government revisit its ruling. Because he says so.<\/p>\n

On the merits, Judge Flaum did revise the court’s ruling to cite a relevant Supreme Court case — that showed Sensenbrenner was wrong about the law.<\/p>\n

But the fact that Sensenbrenner doesn’t know what he’s talking about isn’t as significant as his tactics.
\n<\/p>\n

[S]ome legal experts believe the action by the Judiciary Committee chairman, who is an attorney, is a violation of House ethics rules, which prohibit communicating privately with judges on legal matters, as well as court rules that bar such contact with judges without contacting all parties.<\/p>\n

Further, the letter may be an intrusion on the Constitution’s separation-of-powers doctrine, or, at least, the latest encroachment by Congress upon the judiciary, analysts said.<\/p>\n

David Zlotnick, a law professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island and an expert on federal sentencing law, said, “I think it’s completely inappropriate for a congressman to send a letter to a court telling them to change a ruling.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Considered in context, Sensenbrenner has, through his actions, hinted strongly that’s he’s become unhinged.<\/p>\n

* In May, Sensenbrenner was caught rewriting amendments<\/a> offered by Dems on his committee to make them appear to support sexual predators.<\/p>\n

* In June, Sensenbrenner cut off a hearing<\/a> on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act when witnesses started criticizing the legislation in a way he didn’t like. After declaring the hearing over despite Dem protests, GOP staffers turned off the microphones. Sensenbrenner’s office then announced Dems would no longer have access<\/a> or permission to use committee rooms.<\/p>\n

And now he’s taken to demanding federal appeals courts change rulings he doesn’t like.<\/p>\n

The Republican war against the judiciary is scary enough, but Sensenbrenner’s behavior suggests he has no business chairing the House Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend Darrell alerted me to an incredible story that ran over the weekend about House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and his bizarre intervention in a Chicago drug case. At this point, I think it’s fair to say Sensenbrenner has just about lost it. In an extraordinary move, the chairman of the House […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}