Posted on 08/14/2008 3:30:25 PM PDT by groanup
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The ABA Plots a Judicial Coup
August 14, 2008; Page A12
Some bad ideas never seem to die, especially in the hands of a crafty attorney. That's the story now playing out at the American Bar Association, which voted at its annual meeting this week to endorse a version of "merit selection" for federal judges. What we have here is the latest lawyer-led attempt to strip judicial selection from future Presidents.
According to the proposal, future federal judges would be selected not by an elected President, but with the aid of home-state Senators and a bipartisan commission that would provide a list of recommended nominees for judicial vacancies. The White House would then select a candidate from the preapproved list. The commission would be created by the two Senators from each state to offer up consensus choices for federal nominees.
The point of all this, says the ABA's incoming President Thomas Wells, is to avoid "really rancorous debates" in the confirmation process and make sure vacancies aren't left to languish indefinitely. The bar association has also enlisted former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to push for an expansion of merit selection at the state level as an alternative to judicial elections -- which the bar loathes because voters can be so darn unpredictable.
We admire Mr. Wells's high-mindedness. But surely he must have heard that merit selection merely takes the partisan politics out of the public eye and into backrooms stocked with political insiders. In states that have adopted the ostensibly nonpartisan system, it has given disproportionate influence to the state trial bars that control selection commissions and have steadily marched state courts to the left.
That may not be Mr. Wells's intention, but it's no accident that outfits like the George Soros-bankrolled Justice at Stake...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
From a business perspective this stinks of bad corporate governance as the lawyers will have their fingers in who will decide their cases. Not good.
In Georgia it is common practice for lawyers to contribute to judges’ election campaigns. I know that’s not as bad as some states but I don’t like it a damn bit.
A lawyer friend of my girlfriend’s was telling me just a couple weeks ago that he was studying abroad in Istanbul, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg was there as a guest lecturer for a week.
He said “I actually heard her say, and I quote ‘if the legislative body doesnt do what needs to be done, then it’s up to the judicial body to do it.’”
I was in shock. The I realized it was RBG and I came to.
ping
Absent an Amendment a list provided by the ABA can only be advisory and the President is still free to ignore it.
How about a deal? Merit selection of federal judges in exchange for stripping judges of lifetime appointments.
That is, rotten judges like Alcee Hastings no longer would need to be impeached, but could be removed for cause by the President.
H. Thomas Wells Jr., a partner and founding member at Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C., in Birmingham, Ala., was chosen as the association’s president-elect at its August 2007 annual meeting in San Francisco and will become president in August 2008.
Wells has a litigation practice with emphasis on complex environmental, toxic tort law and products liability cases.
Wells lives in Birmingham with his wife Jan. The couple’s two children, Lynlee Wells Palmer and H. Thomas “Trey” Wells III, are also lawyers in Birmingham and active ABA members.
I wonder how much tobacco money he got. Was Alabama a settlement state? Smokers are probably still paying for his vacation home.
First rule of judicial selection should be that no lawyers are allowed to have anything to do with it...... :^)
They would have to amend the Constitution first. Advise and consent never meant that the President had to pick from a preapproved list.
I quit the ABA 20+ years ago. They are a bunch of leftist idiots.
Let's see now. If I write my senators, that would be, Durban and ... there's another one.
Oh yeah. Obama.
Sometimes it's damed rotten to be an Illinoisan.
Exactly. Why do we allow lawyers to write the laws that we have to pay them to interpret? Seems like a conflict of interest for any lawyer to serve in Congress.
It's OK with me as long as Harriet Myers makes the list.
/sarcasm
We just such a system here in MO to replace MO Supreme Court justices/ supreme court vacancies...trust me, you want NO part of it.
The supposedly ‘non-partisan’ committee nominees always look decidedly liberal, and this severely limits the options for the elected Executive.
Coming to a federal government near you.
We have judges (RATS) retiring just before elections so Granhole can appoint another RAT to run as incumbent and no attorney will challenge. Checking contribution records, selected judges contribute to Granhole and RAT state senators who pushed. Just a disgusting bunch of crap. I am sure Repubs do it to but it is crap. However, our Repub “judge” replace another of the same persuasion when the first one retired at the election and the next fellow was elected against RATS.
Appointment by one man, or ten men, or 100 men, is simply the denial of the franchise to 280 million citizens.
Democracy here; democracy now; no justice; no peace!
Let's see now. If I write my senators, that would be, Durban and ... there's another one.
Just yanking your chain crusty one! LOL!
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