| 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 |
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.
April 29, 2001
The San Francisco Chronicle
Newsmaker ProfileOn 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."
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!
Any of you CA bang lister know what her views on our issues are?
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. 