Posted on 09/08/2005 5:15:42 PM PDT by Happy2BMe
White House Loses Appeal on Base Closing
Friday September 9, 2005 12:31 AM
By GINA HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The base closing commission hit a snag Thursday over the deadline for its recommendations to the White House, as the administration lost a last-minute bid to get the Supreme Court to intervene and protect the panel's plan.
What was to be a routine paperwork delivery of those proposals to President Bush was threatened by a cross-country legal fight.
Judges in Connecticut and Tennessee blocked the panel from recommending changes at local Air National Guard bases.
The Tennessee decision was overruled by an appeals court Thursday afternoon, but the Connecticut injunction stood.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rejected the Bush administration's request for intervention, although another appeal could be filed later and handled by the full court.
Separately, Illinois, Missouri and New Jersey lost emergency Supreme Court appeals intended to stop the commission from sending the report, as is, to the president. Facilities in those states are among hundreds targeted by the base-closing panel for closure or consolidation in the first round of base closings in a decade.
Solicitor General Paul Clement, the administration's Supreme Court attorney, said that the court should safeguard the work of the president and a commission that has spent five months on a plan to restructure domestic military bases to save billions of dollars.
By law, the commission had until Thursday to send its final report to the president, who had pledged to pass it on to Congress without changes. Congress would then have 45 days to block it, although lawmakers have never rejected reports in previous base-closing rounds.
Ginsburg, a Clinton appointee, said that a federal appeals court in New York was dealing with the Connecticut case and ``this court should not short-circuit the normal review process absent a showing of irreparable harm stronger than that presented here.'' Ginsburg handles appeals from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Supreme Court dealt with a flurry of paperwork Thursday, a day after the funeral for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. Lawyers representing Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and other New Jersey officials said they wanted a reprieve to appeal the decision to close Fort Monmouth.
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon asked the high court to protect an Air National Guard unit in St. Louis, and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich challenged plans to move National Guard fighter jets.
Clement had argued for the government that a Connecticut judge was out of line Wednesday in barring the commission from recommending changes at an Air National Guard base in that state.
The base closure panel largely endorsed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's vision but chose to keep open several major bases against Pentagon wishes and crafted its own restructuring of Air National Guard forces.
In other base closing lawsuits, a Massachusetts judge on Thursday rejected the state's efforts to protect the Otis Air National Guard Base. Like several other states, Massachusetts argued that changes to their National Guard units or bases must be approved by governors. Washington state also has filed a lawsuit.
The Bush administration contends the panel's recommendations are not reviewable by courts.
But in Connecticut, U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello said the governor would suffer significant hardship if the state's lawsuit over the Bradley Air National Guard Base wasn't considered immediately. In Tennessee, U.S. District Judge Robert Echols temporarily barred the commission from recommending relocation of the Nashville-based 118th Airlift Wing. A federal appeals court overturned his injunction.
And what precisely would an Air National Guard Base such as Otis with an air superioriy mission do in hurricane relief?
Or what would the Air National Guard Base at Bradley International Airport with a ground strike mission do during hurricane relief? Or are you recommending we use A-10s to shoot looters?
"Or are you recommending we use A-10s to shoot looters?"
I did a few days ago.
I think you are confusing the role of who does what.
The BRAC has nothing to do with natural disasters / recovery.
How does a natural occurrence in nature - one kick ass hurricane - equate to "national security" ??
LVM
Yeah, no reason the Commander in Cheif should have final say over where we base troops. NO,the COURTS should be allowed to interject themselves into that too. Hard core originalist for the O'Conner vacancy Mr President. HARD CORE. If they fail, find an even tougher Son of a B and send THEM to the Senate. And again and again and again until we get SOME restoration of the rule of law in the Courts.
Frankly, I'd like to know where the hell the courts get the power to enjoin a Presidential advisory panel.
give bases to the states so they can form well regulated militia's problem solved.
To long the states have not provided for their own defense.
Problem solved.
It's just stunning to me that of all of them, the Bradley decision is the one holding things up. Last I knew (unless something changed later) the recommendation was that half of the Hogs would move to Westover, which is less than a half-hour drive up the road (but it's over the border in Massachusetts). Kind of hard to make a real national security argument about that kind of a change.
I figured some of the arguments about National Guard bases would get a longer court hearing, but I never would have guessed that would be the last one standing.
Actually I stand corrected...it was Barnes Field, not Westover (still only a half-hour away, but a slightly different windage).
Time to send all the damned lawyers and their MASTERS-in-black all down to the delta region for Gator Bait!
Maybe get something worthwhile out of that human garbage.
These tyranical judges have NO authority to do any of this and I don't know why Bush doesnt have the cojones to tell them to go to hell and stick with THEIR constitutional duties.
Reagan would have kicked ass and taken names.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
Ronald Reagan
I am glad he is not around to see what has become of his America.
And exactly what authority do the courts have over military bases and their closing (or the recommendation of such)?
I doubt whether Ruth Bader Ginsberg's decision is based on any point of constitutional law. Most likely she refused to act because it makes life more complicated for the hated Bush administration. Delay, stonewalling, delay are the weapons of the left when they lack a majority in congress.
Time to defund the NG -- convert everything back to Active Duty. Then let the states pay for their own Guards. Let these liberal governors explain that to their constituents -- well, we saved a few hundred jobs, but now we have to fork over another billion a year to pay for the Guard units.
NO IT DOESN'T WITHIN THIS CONTEXT
Objections are primarily political and community economics.
You are absolutely correct
Interesting concept
Break out the popcorn!
Full Disclosure:
I don't know whose comments would be more entertaining--Jesse Jacksoff's or Geraldo Rivera's.
Prayers for ALL !
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