Posted on 02/21/2004 3:25:29 PM PST by ambrose
Pryor sworn in as judge
Bush appoints attorney general to 11th Circuit while Congress is away
02/21/04
MARY ORNDORFF
News Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON - Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor was sworn in Friday as a federal judge just minutes after President Bush sidestepped a sharply divided U.S. Senate and placed him in the job while Congress was on break.
Pryor stepped down as attorney general and can now start hearing cases with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, an Atlanta-based court one level below the U.S. Supreme Court.
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"His impressive record demonstrates his devotion to the rule of law and to treating all people equally under the law," Bush said in a prepared statement. While the slot has been vacant for more than three years, Bush on Friday called filling it a "judicial emergency."
Bush's move radically alters political landscapes in Montgomery and Washington.
In Alabama, Gov. Bob Riley will appoint Pryor's replacement, a person who will become the state's top law enforcement officer without an election and who will hold the post until Pryor's term expires in 2006. In Congress, Democratic senators who blocked Pryor's nomination for months could retaliate by bottling up even more of Bush's nominees. Already there are signs Bush's action will surface as an issue in the presidential election.
"The president is on shaky ground with the hard right and is using this questionably legal and politically shabby technique to bolster himself," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, who voted against Pryor's nomination in committee.
For Pryor, the recess appointment fulfills his career goal of being a jurist, but it is not permanent. What originally was intended as a lifetime appointment is now guaranteed for only the next 23 months. Unless the Senate changes course and confirms Pryor's nomination, he would have to step aside at the end of the next session of Congress, late in 2005.
Pryor, 41, was sworn in Friday by U.S. Circuit Judge Ed Carnes in a closed ceremony at the federal courthouse in Montgomery. Carnes, already on the federal appeals court bench, is a friend of Pryor's and both are members of the conservative legal group The Federalist Society.
Pryor and his chief deputy, Richard Allen, whom the governor named acting attorney general, arrived at the courthouse at 1:30 p.m. A smiling Pryor emerged from Carnes' chambers about 2:30 p.m., shaking hands and accepting congratulations from well-wishers. He declined to comment.
In a written statement released later, he called the moment "bittersweet," saying he would miss the attorney general's job but was "grateful for the opportunity President Bush has afforded me to serve our nation by supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States."
Nominated in April:
Recess appointments, while not unprecedented, are not common. A few days before Congress returned from its holiday in January, Bush placed another embattled nominee, Charles Pickering of Mississippi, on the 5th Circuit federal bench.
"Again I call on those in the Senate who are playing politics with the American judicial system to stop so that my nominees receive the up-or-down votes they deserve," Bush said.
The White House nominated Pryor for the judgeship in April. After an extensive public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee and hours of intense debate over Pryor's personal politics, conservative views and even his religious beliefs, he was approved by a one-vote margin along partisan lines. But twice Republicans failed to muster the 60 votes they needed to bring the nomination to a vote in the Senate, leaving the issue in limbo for months.
Democrats argued Pryor is too partisan and politically outspoken to be an objective jurist.
"Actions like this show the American people that this White House will stop at nothing to try to turn the independent federal judiciary into an arm of the Republican Party," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Republicans say Pryor has a record of fairness and integrity and is willing to follow laws he may personally disagree with.
"Bill Pryor has shown that he understands the line between the role of law enforcement versus advocate or politician. It is precisely his unwillingness to endorse lawless liberal judicial activism that rouses his enemies," said C. Boyden Gray, chairman of the Committee for Justice, which supports Bush's judicial nominees.
Sessions' support:
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, also supported Pryor.
"While my first preference is never a recess appointment, Bill Pryor's nomination has been unfairly stalled for almost a year without an up-or-down vote by the full Senate," he said Friday.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., championed Pryor's nomination from the beginning. He dismissed suggestions that the appointment - made during the brief Presidents Day recess instead of the longer break between sessions - was not legal.
"This is a strong president and if they're going to play these kind of games with him, he's going to use all the powers he does have to promote the kind of judges he believes in," Sessions said.
By waiting until February, Bush allowed Pryor to serve at least until the end of next year instead of this one, but Sessions said he still would try to persuade the Senate to confirm Pryor for life.
"Bill doesn't have to have this job," Sessions said. "If it doesn't work out, he's one of the state's best lawyers and he can always go back into private practice and do very well financially. He has not done anything other than respond to the president's request to serve."
Bush called a `divider':
Many left-leaning activist groups that have aligned against Pryor, including environmental, civil rights, disability rights and abortion rights organizations, responded bitterly Friday to Bush's appointment.
"President Bush has become a divider, far from being a `uniter,' causing huge rifts in what once was a strong bipartisan consensus on civil rights protections," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
Tom Parker, one of the state Republicans unhappy over Pryor's prosecution of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, for defying a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the judicial building rotunda, also called Bush's decision "outrageous."
Pryor's case against Moore was "a failed effort to get liberals to drop their opposition to his nomination," said Parker, now a candidate for the Alabama Supreme Court.
Moore's lawyer, Phillip Jauregui, also opposed the appointment. "Essentially Pryor's judicial philosophy is one of judicial imperialism whereby he places the opinions of judges over the Constitution and even over the God whom the Declaration of Independence says gave us life," Jauregui said.
Wrong. Putzhead. The Constitution (remember, that document you so cavalierly swore to support and defend) specificially authorizes the President to make recess appointments.
It does NOT specifically authorize 40 neobolshevik senators to block an up or down vote on candidates they don't like.
ROFLOL!
Beg pardon? What did you say?
The easier thing would have been to uphold Moore's position.
Moore was behaving exactly like the San Francisco Mayor. He was disobeying the law, based on his personal beliefs. Neither one is acceptable.
Actually just the opposite is true, but don't let that effect your myopic view.
Pryor followed the Rule of Law to the letter by prosecuting someone who he personally felt was right in what they did. He supported Judge Moore, and even offered Legal advice and suggested Consittutional Lawyers to Represent Moore in Federal Court. Moore turned him down in all these cases.
When Moore disobeyed the Federal Court order (and don;t even start the specious argument of whether the order was this or that or blah blah blah) --- When Moore DISOBEYED the Federal Court order he broke Alabama Law. He was then Brought up for Judicial Review by ALABAMA LAW. As Attorney General of Alabama it was Bill Pryor's JOB to Represent the State against Judge Moore. Pryor UPHELD the RULE OF LAW and did his Job, even though he disagreed with the ruling Moore Disobeyed.
To say otherwise and to accuse Pryor of doing something unconstitutional , Illegal or immoral is a BLATANT OUT AND OUT IGNORANT LIE AND SLANDER of his good name.
"Do you want my main stream conservative values-type judges appointed, or would you prefer Senator Kerry appointing far left Massacheusetts judges, or Californis ultra liberal judges?"
It's a winning argument.
The proper choice is to change the law. In the meantime, Judge Moore, like Martin Luther King, must accept the punishment the law provides.
I would like to see the law changed, I am not willing to have anarchy in the nation in order to get things passed that I want. That is a bad way to go.
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