Posted on 03/01/2007 8:24:02 AM PST by Mr. Brightside
Giuliani-Appointed Judges Tend to Lean to the Left
By: Ben Smith
February 28, 2007 06:30 PM EST
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani addresses a Hoover Institution luncheon at the Willard Hotel in Washington DC. (Patrick G. Ryan)
When Rudy Giuliani faces Republicans concerned about his support of gay rights and legal abortion, he reassures them that he is a conservative on the decisions that matter most.
"I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am," he told South Carolina Republicans last month. "Those are the kinds of justices I would appoint -- Scalia, Alito and Roberts."
But most of Giuliani's judicial appointments during his eight years as mayor of New York were hardly in the model of Chief Justice John Roberts or Samuel Alito -- much less aggressive conservatives in the mold of Antonin Scalia.
A Politico review of the 75 judges Giuliani appointed to three of New York state's lower courts found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by more than 8 to 1. One of his appointments was an officer of the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Judges. Another ruled that the state law banning liquor sales on Sundays was unconstitutional because it was insufficiently secular.
A third, an abortion-rights supporter, later made it to the federal bench in part because New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a liberal Democrat, said he liked her ideology.
Cumulatively, Giuilani's record was enough to win applause from people like Kelli Conlin, the head of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, the state's leading abortion-rights group. "They were decent, moderate people," she said.
"I don't think he was looking for someone who was particularly conservative," added Barry Kamins, a Democrat who chaired the panel of the Bar Association of the City of New York, which reviewed Giuliani's appointments. "He picked a variety from both sides of the spectrum. They were qualified, even-tempered, academically strong."
That is the kind of praise that will amount to damnation (not necessarily faint) among some of the people Giuliani will be trying to impress in Washington on Friday, when he addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference. The group is filled with social conservatives, for whom the effort to recast the ideological orientation of the federal judiciary has been a generation-long project. Giuliani already faced a high threshold of skepticism from many of these activists because of his comparatively liberal record on such hot-button issues as abortion rights, tolerance of gays and gun control.
Giuliani's judicial appointments continue to win good reviews in New York legal circles for being what conservatives sometimes say they want: competent lawyers selected with no regard to "litmus tests" on hot-button social issues. Many of these people were in the mode of Giuliani himself: tough-on-crime former prosecutors with reformist streaks and muted ideologies.
"He took it very seriously -- he spent a lot of time with these candidates," recalled Paul Curran, a Republican and former U.S. attorney who chaired Giuliani's Commission on Judicial Nominations. "He was looking for judges who were willing to enforce the laws."
The mayor of New York appoints judges to three of the state's lowest courts, the Criminal Court and Family Court, which deal with lower-grade crimes than the state's Supreme Court, the main trial court and the Civil Court, which deals in relatively small financial disputes.
When Giuliani took office in 1994, he inherited a system of judicial appointments created by one of his predecessors, Ed Koch, and designed to insulate the courts from political influence. Under the system, the mayor appoints members of an independent panel. Aspiring judges apply to the panel, which recommends three candidates for each vacancy. The mayor chooses among the three.
Giuliani, a former U.S. attorney, and top aides who remain close to him, Dennison Young and Michael Hess, reviewed the applications.
Giuliani cast himself in New York not as a conservative (he had actually run on the Liberal Party line) but as a reformer. Though at least 50 of his 75 appointees were registered Democrats (only six were registered Republicans), Giuliani also won praise for, some say, appointing fewer judges with ties to local Democratic politics than his predecessors.
"It was not people coming out of the clubhouses, which is what I'd seen earlier," said Charles Moerdler, a member of the Commission on Judicial Nominations who had served other mayors in the same capacity. "I did not support Rudy (the first time he ran) because he was too conservative for me, so I was very alert to that, but I didn't see any litmus tests on his part," he said.
Giuliani's judges serve across New York's courts, where they're more likely to encounter misdemeanant celebrities -- Boy George and Naomi Campbell have appeared recently in front of his appointees -- than they are to tangle with the Establishment Clause. Some, like a Family Court judge who ruled that an unmarried couple couldn't adopt, would please national conservatives. But many of their occasional forays into jurisprudence would likely make Scalia wince.
Charles Posner, a Brooklyn judge appointed by Giuliani, made the kind of decision that keeps conservatives up nights when he was asked to levy a fine against a shopkeeper, Abdulsam Yafee, who had illegally sold beer at 3:30 a.m. on a Sunday. In an unusual, lengthy 2004 ruling, Posner found that "there is no secular reason why beer cannot be sold on Sunday morning as opposed to any other morning."
Noting that Sunday is only the Christian Sabbath, Posner continued, "Other than this entanglement with religion, there is no rational basis for mandating Sunday as a day of rest as opposed to any other day."
Giuliani was out of office at the time of the decision and, in any case, had no say over his appointees' rulings. His spokeswoman, Maria Comella, declined to comment on the difference between the judges he appointed and those he promises to appoint.
Another Giuliani appointee reached a socially conservative verdict by a means that might not please strict constructionists. Judge Michael Sonberg denied a motion by two Bronx strip-club owners to dismiss prostitution charges against them that were based on dancers' offering "lap dances" to an undercover officer.
Sonberg ruled that the changing "cultural and sexual practices" of the previous two decades permitted him to alter the definition of prostitution.
"Statutory construction cannot remain static while entrepreneurial creativity brings forth heretofore unimagined sexual 'diversions,' " he wrote in a ruling that would have pleased social conservatives while, perhaps, alarming strict constructionists and strippers alike.
More troubling to some of the social conservatives Giuliani is courting, however, would have been Sonberg's other affiliation: When he was appointed in 1995, he was already an officer of the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Judges, a professional group. After his appointment, he became the group's president.
Laboring in the state's lower courts, few of Giuliani's other appointees show signs of ideological leanings. Two, however, were appointed to federal district courts -- one of them, Richard Berman, by President Bill Clinton. The other, Dora Irizarry, was a Bush nominee considered so liberal that Schumer pushed her nomination through.
Irizarry, appointed by Giuliani to the Bronx Criminal Court in 1996, had disclosed that she considers herself "pro-choice" during her 2002 campaign for New York state attorney general. Her appointment to the federal bench was almost derailed when the American Bar Association ruled her "not qualified" on the grounds that as a state judge, she had been "gratuitously rude and abrasive" and "flew off the handle in a rage."
But to Schumer, who led the fight against Bush's appellate judges, Irizarry was a Republican he could live with.
"Temperament is not at the top of my list," Schumer explained at the time, when asked why he supported the former Giuliani appointee. "Ideology is key."
Not only is it not disingenuous, it directly addressed the point.
Giuliani on Hannity: VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT
So what I do say to conservatives because then you want to look at well okay what can we look to that is similar to the way you think. I think the appointment of judges that I would make would be very similar to if not exactly the same as the last two judges that were appointed. Chief Justice Roberts is somebody I work with, somebody I admire. Justice Alito, someone I knew when he was US attorney, also admire. If I had been president over the last four years, I can't think of any-- that I'd do anything different with that. I guess the key is and I appointed over 100 judges when I was the mayor so it's something I take very, very seriously. I would appoint judges that interpreted the constitution rather than invented it.
Rudy contends he'll apoint conservative judges. Gives his reasons, those he admires, GWB's apointments which he supports, he'll take it seriously, but also asks us to look to the 100 judges he appointed as mayor.
That's what's happening.
The article in the thread only adds up to 56, not 100, so something is off there.
Could be 20 conservative, in a law and order sense, Dems there.
But it's a perfectly reasonable question to raise.
And since Rudy asked us to look to his record, the nature of the pool isn't an issue. However it was chosen, clearly Rudy feels he made conservative choices from it.
actually, his stance is pretty consistent if you look at it. where he talks about the 2nd amendment (one set of laws may not work in one part of the country like they would work in in others) the same principal would apply to abortion or the 10th amendment.
Dear SJackson,
Very good post. It really elucidates the important issues.
I believe part of the discrepancy is that there were 50 Dems, 6 Republicans, and something like 19 or 20 folks that weren't registered in either major party.
But that's from memory, so I could be in error there.
sitetest
sometimes it's better not to "jump the shark" and do some research. "ha"
If he apointed 56 Dems and 2/3 turned out to take a conservative position on crime, that's fine in my opinion. But I don't know that.
From my perspective, Rudy's position on gun ownership is an absolute loser. That's one issue that was probably addressed in the courts at this level. I'd be curious about those cases.
Dear SJackson,
"If he apointed 56 Dems and 2/3 turned out to take a conservative position on crime, that's fine in my opinion."
I understand your point, but disagree with it.
From family court judges come district court judges, then circuit court judges, and then federal judges and appellate judges.
Folks who are acceptable to us at lower levels, but would be unacceptable at higher levels, we shouldn't give a pass on their appointments to the lower levels, because it's often from that pool that appointments to higher levels are made.
sitetest
I'm starting to lean away from Rudy (if the press loves him....) but in his defense, were there more than 6 NYC Republicans willing to serve as judges?
He doesn't ask us to look to the 100 judges that he appointed as Mayor of NYC as proof that he will appoint conservative judges as president; rather, he simply mentions that fact that he appointed 100 judges to emphasize the point that he takes the appointment of judges seriously.
The problem with your reasoning (and the reasoning of others) is that you are trying to equate judges appointed to the NYC Criminal and Family Court with judges appointd to the Supreme Court of the United States and the various Federal Courts at the Circuit and District Court level. While the appointment of judges at all levels is an improtant job, you are equating apples and acorns because judges at the NYC criminal/family court level don't have the time, inclination, or power to exercise the kind of political jurisprudence that is highly relevant when deciding the constitutional questions in the Federal Courts.
IF people in Oklahoma don't want to allow abortion's to be performed in their state that is their choice as well.
It works both ways.
but, would you want to live in a major city that had NO gun control laws what so ever, especially in a low income "urban area" ?
I encourage law abiding people to arm themselves if for no other reason than the 2nd Amendment guarantees us that right without qualification. But please don't propaganize that NYC would be a safer city if more of us carried firearms. NYC is already by far the safest big city in America, and that includes the big cities located in gun-loving Red States like Dallas, Phoenix, Denver, Tulsa, Jacksonville, Mobile, Charlotte, etc. Whether NYC is safer because of or in spite of its strict gun laws is open to debate. But the fact remains that NYC has the lowest violent crime rate of any big city in America.
Maybe so but it wouldn't be because of gun control.
Rotten fruit in Rudolph's past? Heck, he IS a rotten fruit.
When Giuliani took office in 1994, he inherited a system of judicial appointments created by one of his predecessors, Ed Koch, and designed to insulate the courts from political influence. Under the system, the mayor appoints members of an independent panel. Aspiring judges apply to the panel, which recommends three candidates for each vacancy. The mayor chooses among the three.
The commission sends up three Democrats, the mayor has to choose one, guess what...he appoints a Democrat. Looks like he didn't have a completely free hand at judicial appointments.
But how many of them want to be judges? Long hours, bad pay etc. Conservative lawyers are more likely to care about making money. Its the liberal ones who want to change the world.
I think it's meant to support his contension that he'd appoint conservative judges.
If you're saying it's just to prove he can appoint a judge, OK.
That he takes the appointments seriously, that brings us right back to what kind of judges he appointed.
Which I suspect on a municipal level will be difficult to assess.
Rudy Giuliani video on YouTube: "I would like to run on the Democratic line "
YouTube ^
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1793570/posts
Posted on 03/01/2007 2:53:19 PM PST by Kevmo
usually you can get a firearm it's just a bit harder, and I agree, a lot more difficult than it should be for an honest person looking for personal protection or for private use. But, have NO law isn't the answer either.
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