AN UGLY STALL (ESTRADA)

New York Post ^ | 2/10/03 | RUDOLPH GIULIANI

[kattracks]

February 10, 2003 -- LET me share with you a great American success story.

A 17-year-old named Miguel Estrada immigrates to this country from Honduras, speaking only a few words of English. He attends Columbia College, making Phi Beta Kappa and graduating magna cum laude, then Harvard Law School, becoming editor of the Law Review.

[meenie]

Estrada did not help himself when he watered down Ted Olsen's argument against affirmative action at the University of Michigan. In looking for a strict constructionist on the Constitution, I fail to see where affirmative action can meet the test. This places Estrada in the camp of revisionists which we DON'T need.

[Irish Eyes]

Bump

[Russ]

Is that why the Democrats are against him?

[William McKinley]

You have no clue what you are talking about. Estrada was not involved in that case, at all.

[TomB]

It would help if you could give a few links to this information. If true it would be interesting.

[The Electrician]

Wonder why Giuliani did not name Schumer by name as one of the chief obstructionists?

[Pukka Puck]

Hispanic Republican may have blown shot at high court

January 23, 2003

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak23.html

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales succeeded in weakening the government's intervention in the University of Michigan racial preference dispute, but at a potentially heavy personal cost. He increased the difficulty for his friend and patron, George W. Bush, to make him a Supreme Court justice.

The petition in the Michigan case, as it arrived at the White House from Solicitor General Theodore Olson, finally would have placed a president unequivocally against forcing racial diversity on university admissions. Gonzales, who has publicly supported racial preferences, revised the petition. Accepted by the president, it advocates the desirability of government-sponsored diversity if achieved short of quotas.

Such temporizing recalls sidestepping on racial questions by the elder President Bush, a model his son has sought to avoid. Gonzales role also adds to warnings from the younger Bush's conservative base not to repeat his father's grave political blunder: the selection of David Souter to the high court. Like Souter, Gonzales is a former state Supreme Court justice whose record promises easy Senate confirmation and subsequent liberal decisions.

The problem for the president was intensified by the Trent Lott affair. After Bush guaranteed Lott's fall as Senate majority leader by abandoning him, Democrats insisted that was not enough to make the president bigotry-free. He would be tested by two forthcoming decisions: whether to reappoint District Judge Charles Pickering to the appellate bench and whether to intervene against the University of Michigan in the Supreme Court case.

The president was not intimidated, as his father often was when the race card was played against him. The Pickering reappointment was easy enough for Bush, but the Michigan case was more difficult. Counselors inside the White House, including Gonzales, advised the president to keep out of the case entirely--maintaining the avoidance by past presidents of evaluating the constitutionality of racial discrimination for the sake of diversity.

Ted Olson weighed in with a strong brief against racial preferences, arguing that discrimination cannot be used to achieve racial diversity. Bush agreed to intervene, but Gonzales started carving up Olson's language. This was not a matter of the president presiding over a debate between Olson and Gonzales. The solicitor general never got to talk to the president, except through Gonzales.

The result was a brief opposing the Michigan system because it resembles ''rigid quotas'' but defending other ''measures that ensure diversity.'' According to associates of Olson, he was so disturbed by a defense of discrimination to support diversity that he had pangs of conscience in accepting it. As the government's lawyer, however, he had no choice but to argue in behalf of what the head of government approved.

Gonzales' views on affirmative action became widely known in Washington last year when, at a meeting of the conservative Federalist Society, he announced his support of preferences. Around the same time, in Philadelphia at a Heritage Foundation forum, he engaged in sharp debate with racial preference foe Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Gonzales used Bill Clinton's very words in saying Bush seeks an administration ''that looks like America.''

That added to concern about Al Gonzales as a Supreme Court justice-in-waiting that has been building within Bush's political base the last two years. Gonzales resigned after 23 months on the Texas Supreme Court (appointed by Gov. George W. Bush) to come to the White House, expecting to become the first Hispanic American on the U.S. Supreme Court.

He had pulled the Texas court leftward, including decisions favorable to trial lawyers on tort cases. What most disturbed conservatives was his majority opinion invalidating a statute requiring parental notification of abortion by a minor. Democratic senators who last year blocked confirmation of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen as a federal appellate judge repeatedly cited Gonzales' attack on her minority opinion as an ''unconscionable act of judicial activism.''

That alone led prominent Catholic conservatives and other foes of abortion to inform the White House that Gonzales is unacceptable for the high court. Now, he is blamed for a political misstep by the president. Diluting Bush's position on racial quotas did not abate the fury of the left (or even win full support from Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice). It did recall the mistakes of his father.

[Russ]

Sorry you misunderstood. I was being facetious with my comment.

[Pukka Puck]

see post #8.

[Pukka Puck]

I think meenie was confusing Estrada with Gonzales.

I hope this helps.

[William McKinley]

No, I included you because you were calling meenie on his post, not because I thought you were in the wrong.

Meenie was confusing Estrada with Gonzalez.

[Teacup]

Dems to Miguel Estrada: You’re Not Hispanic Enough

The headline from Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's news conference Wednesday was his threat to filibuster the appeals-court nomination of Miguel Estrada.

(Snip)But to hear representatives from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and others tell it, the Estrada nomination should be killed not because of Estrada's alleged refusal to answer questions or because of constitutional obligations but because Estrada, who was born and raised in Honduras before coming to the United States and learning English at the age of 17, is simply not authentically Hispanic.

(snip)Demeo was particularly angry at Republican Judiciary Committee member Sen. Charles Grassley, who last week said that, "If we deny Mr. Estrada a position on the D.C. Circuit, it will be to shut the door on the American dream of Hispanic Americans everywhere." "Actually, the reverse is true," Demeo said. "If the Senate confirms Mr. Estrada, his own personal American dream will come true, but the American dreams of the majority of Hispanics living in this country will come to an end through his future legal decisions."

Just something for you to read. I don't know??? But it sounds to me like the Dems oppose Estrad via little Tommy Dash-Hole. HMMMM? Estrada sounds like the right guy to me.

[FITZ]

He is supported by no fewer than 16 Hispanic groups, who express enormous pride at the prospect of the first Hispanic joining one of America's most prestigious courts.

Why don't they quit using racism altogether? If they want him in because he's a hispanic, then they can't really complain when the democrats decide he isn't hispanic enough. He shouldn't be appointed because he's a hispanic but because he's the right man for the job.

[We Happy Few]

There is an obvious strategy for cutting this Gordian knot. It is the President's constitutional power to make recess appointments.

At the next congressional recess, Bush should make recess appointments for all of the vacanies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Loosely speaking, the appointees can remain there for a year. Appoint respected, retirement-age law professors and senior law partners who are very conservative but who are too old to be seriously considered for permanent appointment to this important court.

Once the Democrats in the Senate realize that foot-dragging on nominees like Miguel Estrada will not prevent conservatives from participating on the D.C. Circuit, they may reevaluate the costs and benefits of vilifying Estrada for cheap political gain. In any event, the President will be able to have conservative judges serving for the duration of his presidency (and nearly one year into the next).

To be sure, the recess appointee must relinquish the judgeship. But thereafter he will have the pleasure of being called "Judge" for the rest of his (or her) life by other lawyers. This is not a small matter of professional prestige. Moreover, for law professors (who routinely uproot their families to take a sabattical year at another university) the idea of spending a year as a judge on the second most important court in the nation should have considerable appeal. A law professor probably would have to resign his tenure, a factor that would weigh in favor of making recess appointees of retired faculty.

The same strategy would work with the Supreme Court. When Chief Justice Rehnquist retires, Bush should make a recess appointment of a conservative judge who is on senior status (Buckely, Silberman, et al.). That judge would serve until a nominee was confirmed, or for not more than a year. Thereafter the retired judge would have (1) the professional satisfaction of capping his career by sitting on the Supreme Court, if for only a year, and (2) the pleasure of being "Justice" for the rest of his life.

Of course, a President could make an immediate recess appointment of his intended permanent nominee. It seems forgotten by most that LBJ made a recess appointment of Thurgood Marshall, who was later confirmed by the Senate. But this would be a risky strategy.

In sort, the recess appointment of senior law partners, retired law professors, and senior status federal appellate judges is a no-brainer.

The political strategists may pooh-pooh this approach, but one must ask whether their wisdom is compromised by timidity, an eagerness to prove their worth by seeking "consensus" with political adversaries, and an astounding ignorance of the provisions in the Constitution that fully permit bare-knuckled politics.

Calling Karl Rove. Calling Al Gonzales.

[meenie]

Evidently you have not been keeping up with the forum. It was discussed in several threads on FR. Estrada is Bush's council and approves Bush's actions. Ted Olsen prepared a strongly worded brief opposing affirmative action. Estrada watered it down, even suggesting that in some instances affirmative action was desirable. Ted Olsen was Po'd which I can't blame him. Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice also made statements supporting affirmative action.

My question still stands. Can you square the Constitution with affirmative action where everybody is to be treated equally? If you can you are a revisionist where the Constitution can be subverted to suit your whims. Not a good start for a potential justice if you believe in the Constitution.

[arasina]

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales is NOT the same person as U.S. Court of Appeals (D.C.) Nominee Miguel Estrada.

Mr. Gonzales is the one who watered down Ted Olsen's University of Michigan brief. Miguel Estrada's nomination to the D.C. Appeals Court is currently being opposed by the Dems because they fear he is PRO-LIFE and may eventually be nominated to the United States Supreme Court and overturn Roe v. Wade.

Two separate individuals. Two separate issues.

[TomB]

Estrada is Bush's council

He is?

[TomB]

Meenie was confusing Estrada with Gonzalez.

It's going to be interesting to see how long it takes for this fact to dawn on him.

[votelife]

Gonzales watered down the opinion, NOT Estrada. Get your judges straight!