May 2, 2005

WHEN DEMOCRATS LAST IN THE DOORWAY STOOD:

Judge doesn't deserve the Dixiecrat treatment (Harold Johnson, Timothy Sandefur, May 2, 2005, SF Chronicle)

Will Senate Democrats use the "Strom Thurmond option" against California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown? Will they try to block her nomination to a federal appeals court with a filibuster -- the tactic made infamous by the late Sen. Thurmond of South Carolina and other segregationists when they battled civil-rights bills back in the 1950s and '60s?

If they do, they will give Republicans ammunition for the "nuclear" strategy of ending filibusters for all judicial nominees. The sight of self- described liberal senators insisting on a supermajority, instead of the traditional up-or-down vote, in order to deny a promotion to a brilliant black female judge, may not go well with the public. It could make the "nuclear option" appear not so radical after all.

To be sure, many of Brown's conservative supporters can be accused of playing the race card. They like to emphasize her background as the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper in the segregated South, someone who overcame poverty and bigotry to become a leader of her profession.

Both sides should focus more on Brown's actual record and ideas. They will discover a jurist of insight and integrity -- and learn valuable lessons about the judiciary's proper role in a government system dedicated to individual rights.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 2, 2005 8:05 AM
Comments

Two notes:

Thurmond may have still been a democrat when he was doing the filibustering of the civil right legistlation. If true notice how the article doesn't point this out.

San Fran is hard core liberal territory. Either this is a lone voice in the wilderness or a sign the Dems are really losing on this issue.

Posted by: AWW at May 2, 2005 11:33 AM

That is my point as well.

Posted by: Olivier at May 2, 2005 11:35 AM

Of course they are losing: if Brown went to the floor, she would be confirmed with probably 80 votes (including HRC).

I suspect the party "professionals" are going to have to force a split from the hard left on this point. The 10 judges on the block now are just the warm-up for the Supreme Court, and the Democrats cannot afford to let MoveOn, Whoopi Goldberg, and Ralph Neas be on TV for 2 months while the nomination is debated. They will lose, big time. And it will hurt them, big time. And Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Kent Conrad, and a few others will vote to confirm, anyway.

Bush should nominate Miguel Estrada, and let the chips fall where they may. He will get more votes than Clarence Thomas, that's for sure.

Posted by: jim hamlen at May 2, 2005 11:49 AM

CA Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown was resoundingly re-elected to the CA Supreme Court, by a greater margin than the other Justice's running, in Cerulean Blue CA, not mention winning in Midnight Blue San Francisco.
I need somebody much smarter than I, the numbers must be legion, to explain how the national Left could reject somebody accepted by Barbara Boxer's left?
Mike

Posted by: Mike Daley at May 2, 2005 10:41 PM
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