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Newsweek: Calif. Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Supreme Court?
Newsweek ^ | Feb. 9, 2003 | Daniel Klaidman, Debra Rosenberg and Tamara Lipper

Posted on 02/09/2003 7:39:34 AM PST by jern



Feb. 17 issue — It’s been nine years since the last vacancy opened up on the U.S. Supreme Court. That historically long drought could end this year with at least one resignation. Eager White House aides are stepping up preparation efforts, vetting candidates and contemplating a special media operation to deal with a potential confirmation battle.

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: California; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: banglist; janicerogersbrown; justice; supremecourt
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1 posted on 02/09/2003 7:39:34 AM PST by jern
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To: jern
I'll second this... the word on the street is that she will indeed be the nominee when the current Chief retires. Then O'Connor will take the Chief mantle for about a year before retiring so that Brown can be next. So say the DC whisperers, anyway.
2 posted on 02/09/2003 7:42:59 AM PST by austinTparty
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To: jern
.


Bahhhhh HAAAAAAaaaa!




.
3 posted on 02/09/2003 7:43:07 AM PST by vannrox (The Preamble to the Bill of Rights - without it, our Bill of Rights is meaningless!)
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To: jern

From TALK LEFT


A Hyper Liberal Discussion Site...

Friday :: December 27, 2002

Bush Contemplating Supreme Court Replacements

What a chilling thought:Expecting a Vacancy, Bush Aides Weigh Supreme Court Contenders.

Bush aides already are having discussions about replacements for Chief Justice Rehnquist in the event he retires at the end of this term. They are also preparing for the possibility of more than one vacancy: John Paul Stevens is 82, Chief Justice Rehnquist is 78, and Justice O'Connor is 72.

Who's on deck right now?

In almost all of the possibilities, officials said, Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel and a longtime legal adviser to Mr. Bush from Texas, would be a candidate. Mr. Gonzales would be the first Hispanic member of the Supreme Court. Mr. Bush's top aides, notably Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, are described as keenly aware that this would provide a political bonus for both him and the Republican Party, which has been aggressively courting Hispanic voters.

"I don't think there's any question the president would turn to him," said a senior administration official who knew details of the informal but high-level discussions.

Also under discussion is Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, the chief judge of the very conservative 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va., and Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., a federal appeals court judge in Newark, who used to clerk for Scalia and is referred to as "Scalito."

Here are some of the other possibilities:

Judge J. Michael Luttig who also sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court. Justice Brown, a black woman, wrote the majority opinion in 2000 interpreting the state's referendum against affirmative action in a way that delighted conservatives.

Another candidate is Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans who is noted for sharp conservative opinions.

....Also mentioned has been Larry D. Thompson, the deputy attorney general, who would give the court two black members.

Packing the Supreme Court with conservatives will be one of Bush's longest lasting legacies. The judicial and criminal justice systems will change markedly. Protections we have taken for granted since childhood will disappear.

There will be no reason for every child over the age of 9 to be able to recite Miranda warnings or know a cop has to have a warrant if they want to come in the house or search. They won't know these things because they won't have seen them a hundred times on tv on the cop shows. They won't be referred to on the cop shows since there won't be any more Miranda or 4th Amendment rights to speak of--the exceptions to these principles will become the rule. Exigent circumstances, good- fath exceptions, the inevitable discovery doctrine, just wait till you see what they will think of next.

Since the Justices are appointed for life, we fear we won't see the pendulum swing back again in our lifetimes. What a legacy to leave our children.

If there is one reason not to back a third party candidate who can't possibly win over a Democrat who can, this is surely it.

Posted Friday :: December 27, 2002 | TrackBack

4 posted on 02/09/2003 7:51:50 AM PST by vannrox (The Preamble to the Bill of Rights - without it, our Bill of Rights is meaningless!)
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To: jern
WITH THE WHITE House and the Senate both in Republican hands, GOP-nominated Justices William Rehnquist, 78, and Sandra Day O’Connor, 72, are considered most likely to depart. Some reports suggested that Rehnquist has already given President George W. Bush a heads up on his departure. But a senior administration official dismisses the idea, saying the White House has no “inside information.”
        Bush aides had contemplated the idea of elevating Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, 66, to replace Rehnquist as chief. Some administration officials relished the idea of courting a major confirmation battle over Scalia—a folk hero to conservatives. Nominating Scalia to be chief would fire up Bush’s conservative base, some argued. And some Democratic senators might find it tough to oppose Scalia since they already voted for him once: he cleared the Senate by a vote of 98-0 in 1986. But in the end, sources tell NEWSWEEK, White House officials rejected the idea, concluding that the brilliant but pugnacious justice would not be a consensus builder—an important quality for a chief justice. “We discussed it seriously, but rejected it definitively,” says a source familiar with the process.
        Many strategists have predicted Bush will fill the open seat with the court’s first Hispanic justice. Early betting centered on White House counsel and Bush confidant Alberto Gonzales. But some elements of Bush’s conservative base seem to have cooled on the idea. And White House insiders say Gonzales himself has never been enthusiastic about going on the high court. (More likely, the sources say, is that Gonzales, succumbing to President Bush’s personal entreaties, would fill a second vacancy.) Other possibilities: appellate Judge Emilio M. Garza of Texas and, if he’s confirmed to the D.C. Circuit Court, lawyer Miguel Estrada.

        Other observers think Bush could take another approach, appointing California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown instead. Brown is a conservative African-American who’s ruled against affirmative action and abortion rights. Her nomination would let Bush add the court’s third woman and second African-American in one swoop. And White House lawyers have already interviewed her. Tom Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who argues cases before the court, believes Brown could even get the nod for chief justice. “An African-American female nominee is not going to be filibustered,” he says. “She doesn’t have a record that will stop Democrats in their tracks.” And after months of bitter Senate fights over nominations to lower courts, that could have an appeal all its own.

5 posted on 02/09/2003 7:53:55 AM PST by 11th Earl of Mar
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To: jern
Source: UCLA LAW COMMUNITY IN THE NEWS
April 29, 2001
The San Francisco Chronicle
Newsmaker Profile

On first take, it's hard to believe that Janice Rogers Brown '77, the daughter of Alabama sharecroppers and the first African American woman on the California Supreme Court, would write a decision jeopardizing hundreds of affirmative action programs throughout the state.

After four years as a justice, Brown has staked a claim for herself as the outspoken conservative on a court steering a moderate course. Her opinions are pointed and provocative, and she doesn't mind taking swipes at her colleagues.

Brown is best known for her November decision upholding Proposition 209, the 1996 voter-approved initiative barring preferential treatment for women and minorities. In writing the majority opinion, Brown attacked the entire history of affirmative action, a move that Chief Justice Ronald George, in a rare dissent, condemned as being "unnecessary and inappropriate."

Ward Connerly, one of the prime backers in the 1996 initiative, is a big fan of Brown's. He says she has "a profound respect for civil rights," but also believes in individual responsibility. Although she is a prominent minority woman, he said, "she doesn't carry on her shoulders the burdens of anybody else or the expectations of anybody else."

A liberal in her college days, the 51-year-old justice became a conservative after law school convinced her that the courts should be not be used for sweeping social changes. She is a quiet, intensely private person--Brown refused repeated requests to be interviewed for this story and others. In court, she asks few questions when lawyers argue their cases. But when she writes an opinion, she becomes a pugnacious street fighter on legal-size paper.

Brown sprinkles her decisions with quotes and characters from Plato's "Republic," George Washington's farewell address, John Grisham novels and songwriter Billy Preston's 1970s song "Nothing From Nothing Leaves Nothing."

Her defenders say that Brown is motivated by a sense of justice, not by any preconceived notions or political beliefs. Her passions and forthright opinions came through in the majority opinion she wrote in the Proposition 209 case. With the court deeply divided, Brown wrote a majority opinion that stung liberals and minorities because of her condemnation of several key civil rights rulings.

Brown was born in Greenville, Ala., about 50 miles south of Montgomery. As a child growing up in the segregated South, she was surrounded by color barriers in schools, restaurants and hospitals. After graduating from UCLA law school, Brown spent eight years at the state attorney general's office working on both civil and criminal cases. In 1991, she became Wilson's legal affairs secretary, advising him on such issues as term limits, executions and reapportionment. Wilson appointed her to the state Court of Appeal in October 1994. In May 1996, she was confirmed to the state Supreme Court.

Justice Brown--in her own words--Justice Janice Rogers Brown may ask few questions in court, but she holds little back in written opinions. Brown has a broad sense of history, an undeniable literary flair and a tendency to fling a few zingers. While all of her decisions can be lively, she saves most of her rhetorical punches for dissenting opinions. Here is a sampling--In a 1997 decision that allowed cities to clear the streets of gang members who annoy or intimidate residents, she wrote: "Liberty unrestrained is an invitation to anarchy"--She backed drug testing for both job applicants and current employees up for promotion in government, calling it one of the trade-offs of being a public employee. "Such choices are neither easy nor comfortable," she wrote. "But that is life. Sometimes beauty is fierce; love is tough; and freedom is painful"--When the court ruled that the governor and Legislature could appoint members of the State Bar Court, a power that previously belonged solely to the state Supreme Court, Brown took a jab at colleagues in her dissenting opinion: "The preservation of a viable constitutional government is not a task for wimps"--She was also aghast when the majority allowed a judge to ban racial slurs in the workplace, saying they had frivolously brushed away free speech rights. "I can conceive no imprisonment so complete, no subjugation so absolute, no debasement so abject as the enslavement of the mind"--In a relatively obscure antitrust case, she offered this reminder to her senior colleagues: "The quixotic desire to do good, be universally fair and make everybody happy is understandable. Indeed, the majority's zeal is more than a little endearing. There is only one problem with this approach. We are a court."


6 posted on 02/09/2003 7:57:24 AM PST by bvw
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To: austinTparty
Don't Senators from the state of the juducial nominee have the "right" to veto the nomination? [called "blue slipping"]

I wonder how these Senate rules would play out if Boxer and Feinstein refused to back her.
7 posted on 02/09/2003 7:57:38 AM PST by 11th Earl of Mar
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To: 11th Earl of Mar
Don't Senators from the state of the juducial nominee have the "right" to veto the nomination? [called "blue slipping"] I wonder how these Senate rules would play out if Boxer and Feinstein refused to back her.

Yes, they do have that "right" (it is just a custom).

The plan would be to have the Dems fillibuster Estrada and then refuse to blue slip Janice Brown, and then present a case that the Democrats are racists. Seems a bit tenuous in Brown's case, as people like Sharpton would just call her an "Uncle Tom", and most blacks would buy it, as they did with Clarence Thomas. However Latinos are far more open, and will be mad.

8 posted on 02/09/2003 8:04:13 AM PST by montag813
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To: jern
In general I don't have a great feeling about Brown. I think she could be another Souter in a few years. Let's get Michael Luttig in there first...a REAL Conservative's Conservative.
9 posted on 02/09/2003 8:05:24 AM PST by montag813
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To: 11th Earl of Mar
I am afraid that the CA dems and ALL dems in the Senate would vigorously oppose the appointment of this California Justice. She is black and dems hate blacks. That is why they will fight her nomination with every racist bone in their bodies.

It is the same reason that Sharpton will not get the nomination. It is the same reason that ALL black congressmen are segregated into an easily controlled caucus that doesn't do anything but whine about normal people.

Now that this name has surfaced, you will see leaks of negative information about her. The black race pimps will point out that the murdering black teenager she sent to prison instead of to rehabiltating at UCLA is now very sad and its all her fault. Don't some of Jesse Jackson's formerly pregnant girl friends live out in California? I'm sure they'll have an opinion. The left wing media will begin a campaign to damn her with faint praise. Just watch!!

10 posted on 02/09/2003 8:07:58 AM PST by Tacis
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To: bvw
Wow. I think I like this judge.
I'll take a judge who throws out zingers at the liberal goofballs any day.

Here I thought California was hopeless.
Where did this one come from?
11 posted on 02/09/2003 8:14:17 AM PST by Lancey Howard
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To: Lancey Howard
"Here I thought California was hopeless.
Where did this one come from? "

Alabama, apparently.

12 posted on 02/09/2003 8:22:42 AM PST by billorites
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To: Diago
bump
13 posted on 02/09/2003 8:23:17 AM PST by Akron Al
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To: jern; All
Well, *I* hope she wins her deserved seat on the Supremes! She *is* an outspoken & assertive woman who also, happens to have skin of a darker tone. While I chose to mention her skin color last, to me, it is rather important. I feel this way b/c I believe she would be an EXCELLENT role model to, not just black, young ladies, but to ALL young women setting high aspirations for themselves!

She is against abortion rights. She is against affirmative action. But most importantly, she is a woman of great character and integrity. She comes from generations of southern Christians who've lived their lives checking each of their thoughts and decisions to the Lord's teachings. If they didn't measure up, they didn't fly in her family.

She is strong, she is grounded, she is Christian, & she is a GREAT choice!


14 posted on 02/09/2003 8:27:39 AM PST by getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL ( http://www.petitiononline.com/adalert ******please, check it out : ))
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To: Akron Al
bump
15 posted on 02/09/2003 8:46:39 AM PST by getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL ( http://www.petitiononline.com/adalert ******please, check it out : ))
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To: vannrox
What a legacy to leave our children.?

What children?

They have abortions.

16 posted on 02/09/2003 8:54:37 AM PST by lonestar (Don't mess with Texans)
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To: austinTparty
Here is just one case example of her position and style:

http://www.law.com/regionals/ca/stories/edt1207c.shtml

Excerpts...
"In San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco, S091757, the hotel's owners challenge the constitutionality of the city's Hotel Conversion Ordinance, which requires residential hotel owners to pay a fee if they want to change their property's historic use to cater to tourists. The purpose of the 1981 ordinance is to ensure the retention of affordable housing in San Francisco by using the fee charged hotel owners to replace the housing stock lost by conversion."

"San Francisco Deputy City Attorney Andrew Schwartz was stopped short Thursday during oral arguments before the California Supreme Court when Justice Janice Rogers Brown uttered the word 'ransom.'"

"Brown was talking about a hefty fee the city of San Francisco charges residential hotel owners wanting to convert their property for use by tourists, and she made it quite clear she was troubled by the concept.

"'You are taking the property owner's right to use his property as he wants and you are saying he is able to continue that use only if he pays you ransom,' Brown said. That, she continued, would be like her taking Schwartz's car and refusing to return it unless he met her demands."

"'In many jurisdictions,' Brown said sharply, 'that would be theft.'"

After the argument, San Francisco lawyers Andrew Zacks and Paul Utrecht took credit for Baxter's suggestion about a standard of review. They were also heartened by Justice Brown's strongly stated comments.

"'We believe Justice Brown understands these issues,' Zacks said. 'Her past opinions,' Utrecht added, 'have been very protective of the Fifth Amendment.'"

"Brown was steamed that the San Francisco ordinance -- 'a very convoluted statutory scheme to say the least' -- defined the 95-year-old, 62-room San Remo Hotel as a residential facility. The fact that the city defined it based on the number of rooms rented to tourists and residents during a 32-day survey period in 1979 didn't sit well with her, either."

"'What this was was a hotel,' she said. 'It remained a hotel, and it's still a hotel.'"

17 posted on 02/09/2003 8:59:53 AM PST by getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL ( http://www.petitiononline.com/adalert ******please, check it out : ))
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To: montag813
You are wrong.

Brown is first rate, on all issues.

Cheers,

Richard F.

18 posted on 02/09/2003 9:07:36 AM PST by rdf
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To: jern
Interesting; but not as Supreme Court Chief Justice right off the bat.
19 posted on 02/09/2003 9:08:38 AM PST by freekitty
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To: jern; *bang_list; Travis McGee; CWW
What is her record on RKBA/second ammendment? Just because newsweek and msnbc are calling her conservative doesn't get me all atwitter. They think Bernie Sanders is liberal, not commie and that Hillary is a moderate.

Any of you CA bang lister know what her views on our issues are?

20 posted on 02/09/2003 9:18:02 AM PST by TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig
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