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After making Gov. Scott Walker the issue in a Milwaukee County Circuit Court race, state Administrative Law Judge Carolina Maria Stark led Walker's appointee, incumbent Circuit Judge Nelson Phillips III, in Tuesday's primary. Stark and Phillips will advance to the April 3 general election, edging out Glendale Municipal Judge Chris Lipscomb on his third try for the circuit bench. Walker appointed Phillips, a former state and federal prosecutor, to the Branch 17 seat in October. Stark made that appointment a campaign issue, saying she didn't apply for the post because she didn't want to be associated with Walker. She works...

Wicker to boycott Cordray hearing to protest Obama 'recess' appointmentsBy Pete Kasperowicz - 01/26/12 03:45 PM ET Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) on Thursday afternoon said he would boycott a planned hearing next week in which Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray will testify, as a way of protesting Cordray's recess appointment to that post when the Senate was not in recess. "Let me be explicitly clear," Wicker said on the Senate floor. "Richard Cordray is not the duly constituted director of the CFPB. His purported recess appointment does not comply with the Constitution, and is in fact a...

The Department of Justice offered a defense on Thursday for President Obama’s controversial decision to make several recess appointments while Congress was in pro forma sessions. In a memo, Justice argued the pro-forma sessions held every third day in the Senate do not constitute a functioning body that can render advice and consent on the president’s nominees. It said the president acted consistently under the law by making the appointments.

GOP: Could Obama make a recess appointment overnight or on weekend?By Pete Kasperowicz - 01/06/12 03:01 PM ET Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is asking the Obama administration whether recess appointments overnight and on the weekend are possible after the president's decision this week to appoint four federal officials despite pro forma sessions by Congress. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Grassley and seven other Republican senators on Friday pressed the Obama administration for more details about its decision to make the controversial recess appointments. Grassley's letter said the White House broke with 90 years of precedent on Wednesday...

Romans 13:1 "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, For there is not power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God."

Republican lawmaker: Obama recess appointment is attack on ConstitutionBy Pete Kasperowicz - 01/04/12 12:39 PM ET House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) on Wednesday predicted that the Obama administration's decision to recess-appoint Richard Cordray as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) would lead to numerous legal challenges against the agency that will render it unable to function for the foreseeable future. "President Obama has delegitimized the CFPB and has opened the agency up to legitimate legal challenges that will cripple it for years," Bachus said. "The greatest threat to our economy right now is uncertainty,...

The Senate is famed for its long-winded debates, but on Friday it took Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown just seconds to stop Republicans in their tracks. With the Senate entering the first day of its Memorial Day recess, the Ohio senator was briefly in the chair, before a near-empty chamber, to gavel in and gavel out what is called a pro forma session. Without that procedural move, the Senate would technically be adjourned and President Bush could install administration officials or judges as "recess appointments" — without Senate confirmation. "That's the fastest I've ever done it," said Brown, who like other...

Most of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 11th-hour appointments came as no surprise: Friends, allies and administration workers were rewarded – sometimes well rewarded – in a ritual that has become a tradition for outgoing governors. But one appointment stood out. Former state Sen. Carole Migden, a liberal San Francisco Democrat, was named to the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the nation’s first state agency created to protect and regulate the collective bargaining rights of farm workers. The ALRB was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, then in his first term, legislation that was supported by the late United Farm...

Dr. Donald Berwick has his coming out party today in Washington. After President Obama snuck him into office during a recess appointment as the head of the second largest health insurance company in the world- CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) without so much as a single hearing, Senators finally have an opportunity to meet him during a Finance Committee meeting.

That whole Senate confirmation process is only there to keep the country from experiencing change it can believe in, right? Well, then let’s just skip it. You can almost hear these thoughts going through Obama’s head as you read about his appointment of Elizabeth Warren as adviser to the shaping of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Bureau will be the embodiment of Warren’s brainchild, the Consumer Finance Protection Agency, and “will be a watchdog for the American consumer” if we are to believe Obama. By appointing Warren as an advisor and not as the Bureau’s director, Obama was able...

I should start by acknowledging that repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment is hardly a mainstream issue and certainly not anything likely to come about (which is an understatement). However, the fact that there are people out there seeking its repeal is sufficient to garner comment, especially since said persons were significant enough within factions of the Tea Party movement to actually get some Senate candidates to state that they were in support of the repeal. Further, every once in a while I will get a commenter who is favor a repeal, so it seems worth some discussion.The proximate cause of...

Actress Bo Derek may be a "10," but state lawmakers Wednesday indefinitely put off a decision on whether to confirm her appointment by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to a state board. The Senate Rules Committee delayed action on the governor’s appointments of Derek, Keith Brackpool, David J. Israel and Richard A. Rosenberg to the California Horse Racing Board. If confirmed, they would all serve well into the administration of the next governor, who takes office in January.

President Barack Obama's recess appointment of Donald Berwick to lead Medicare was intended to avoid another high-profile congressional fight over healthcare reform. Instead, it’s renewed — at least temporarily — the well-worn partisan debate over the government's role in medicine. The White House, with the help of congressional Democrats, had of late begun playing up the tangible benefits of the new law in hopes of picking up votes in November's midterms. But Berwick's appointment to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS] — without any formal discussion on Capitol Hill — offers Republicans an opportunity to rehash the...

Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana), one of President Barack Obama's point men in the health care reform debate, is the first Democrat to publicly criticize the president for his recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to oversee Medicare and Medicaid. Calling Senate confirmation of presidential appointees "an essential process prescribed by the Constitution," the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said he was "troubled" that Mr. Obama chose to bypass the legislative branch of government.

Former President Bill Clinton urged President Barack Obama to consider appointing someone to the Supreme Court who comes from political life, but said both he and his wife, the secretary of state, were too old for the job. Several senators have also urged the White House to look at candidates outside the judiciary to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Political figures used to be well represented on the high court, but all nine justices serving now came from the federal appeals bench. Nominees from such a background are seen as easier to confirm and as more predictable once they...

Frustrated with such pesky nuisances as the Constitution, Obama now says he intends to circumvent the entire Senate confirmation process to railroad through 177 radical left-wing nominees--many of whom are opposed by both parties--while Congress is still in recess...

There is much excitement over President Obama's appointment of a transgender woman, Amanda Simpson, as Senior Technical Advisor to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security. Simpson was previously a deputy director at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson and a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives from Arizona. She also has degrees in physics, engineering and business administration, and is a licensed flight instructor. Simpson portrays herself as "one of the first transgender presidential appointees to the federal government," though we don't know of any others. (Alan Colmes says she's "Likely The First Presidential Transgendered Appointee.") Tranifesto's Matt...

Georgia Rep. John Lewis, one of Washington's most prominent Democrats, called the White House earlier this year to try to block the appointment of a federal prosecutor who won convictions against more than a dozen public officials in Atlanta -- including former Mayor Bill Campbell, a longtime friend and ally of Mr. Lewis. After queries from The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lewis' contacted White House Counsel Greg Craig late last month to withdraw his objections to the nomination of the prosecutor, Sally Q. Yates, for U.S. Attorney in Atlanta. Two government officials with knowledge of the matter described the calls....

How can it be appropriate to change the legal mechanism for filling a vacancy after that vacancy has occurred?

As speculation swirls about which politicians will vie for the first open Massachusetts Senate seat in 25 years, the process of determining a successor for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy will hinge on the actions of the state Legislature. Current law provides for a special election to fill an open seat five months after a vacancy, a provision enacted by Democrats in 2004 during the presidential election, when Sen. John Kerry was running for president. The law would have prevented then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, from appointing a successor to the seat. Just days before his death, Kennedy sent a...

IN 2004, FEARING that Republican Gov. Mitt Romney would appoint a fellow Republican to replace Sen. John F. Kerry should he become president, the Democratic-controlled Massachusetts legislature changed the law, mandating a special election. Now, fearing that the push for health-care reform could be weakened by the absence of a 60th Democratic senator, that same legislature wants to change the law again, allowing the governor -- now a Democrat -- to make a quick appointment. With all due respect to the wishes of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, this isn't how lawmaking is supposed to work. It smacks of political expediency...

*** The SCOTUS shortlist? According to a couple of sources in the know, there appears to be a working short list of about six names for President Obama’s Supreme Court pick. The co-frontrunners (in no particular order): Diane Wood of the 7th Circuit, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circuit, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Merrick Garland of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

US President Barack Obama faced a host of personnel problems this week, as two top appointees bowed out because of unpaid income taxes and another pick distressed some in the Jewish community. Slideshow: Pictures of the week Samantha Power, a Harvard University genocide expert and former Obama campaign adviser, has been appointed to the the National Security Council's multilateral institutions office. She has been criticized in the past for making statements critical of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. In one clip making the rounds courtesy of YouTube, Power accuses Israel of "major human rights abuses," though she distinguishes...

In addition to all the other reasons we've talked about this week for opposing confirmation of Eric Holder as attorney general, The Heritage Foundation alerts us to his "Sixth Amendment Problem." Citing an article by Harvey Silvergate in The National Law Journal, we learn: "...Holder strongly suggested that, when deciding whether to indict a corporation — and indictment can be a death sentence for companies in certain businesses — they consider whether the company has "cooperated" in the investigation. "Cooperation" was partially defined by whether the corporation agreed to waive the legally protected attorney-client and work-product privileges...including corporate counsel's discussions...

Roland Burris: Not a Virgin in A Chicago Whorehouse From research collected at Chicago: Crime Kind of Town (Many thanks Maggie F) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2151323/posts?q=1&;page=251 Connect the dots: Loop Capital Markets — a big donor to Illinois politicians — secretly funneled money to a Philadelphia attorney to gain business with the city of Philadelphia, according to a federal indictment there. FROM: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:KwpyAfyGBk8J:therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/ayers-and-obama-fixed-chicagos-schools-not-really/+Roland+Burris+%2B+Obama&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=40&gl=us Burris has gone on to receive over $1 million in no-bid, low-effort “consulting” contracts from Illinois State agencies under the Governor’s control as well as a $5000/month “retainer” from Loop Capital, headed by BHO homie Jim Reynolds. FROM: http://www.barackbook.com/Profiles/JamesReynoldsJr.htm “In...

U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 6 Article 1 - The Legislative Branch Section 6 - Compensation paragraph two states: "No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."

Former solicitor general under the Clinton Administration Walter Dellinger told the Washington Post that Granholm is on a short list of five people to replace an outgoing Supreme Court Justice if Democrat Barack Obama is elected President.

"...Midge Rendell went on to become a federal trial court judge in 1994 and was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals..." "...She is now one step away from a seat on the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, and Specter says that could be in her future..."

Under pressure from House Republicans, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) may be backing away from a plan to place Rep. William J. Jefferson on the Homeland Security Committee. “It’s being considered,” a Democratic aide acknowledged Monday. Jefferson, D-La., who is the subject of a federal bribery investigation, was tapped last month by Pelosi to serve on the panel because it oversees much of the recovery effort in his New Orleans district. The House Democratic Caucus approved the appointment last week. Only a procedural vote on the House floor was needed to make him an official member of the...

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), who stripped embattled Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record) of his seat on a powerful tax committee last year, has decided to put him on the Homeland Security panel, infuriating some Republicans who charge he may be a security risk. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, was kicked off the Ways and Means Committee amid a federal bribery probe, yet still won re-election to a ninth term. Pelosi is giving him a seat on the panel after Jefferson was outspoken in his criticism of the homeland security agencies that responded to...

ALBANY, New York: If Hillary Rodham Clinton wins the White House in 2008, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer would appoint a successor to fill her Senate seat for two years, a situation that has renewed speculation Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might one day follow in his father's political footsteps. Kennedy has long expressed an interest in the Senate seat from New York that was held by his father Robert Kennedy for more than three years until his assassination in 1968 as he pursued the Democratic presidential nomination. Kennedy, a New York-based environmental lawyer, did not immediately return a telephone message...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (AP) — With Congress now in a recess, President Bush on Thursday bypassed opposition from Democrats in the Senate and the United Mineworkers of America and appointed his nominee to head the agency that oversees mine safety. Mr. Bush appointed Richard M. Stickler, who is expected to serve about a year until the end of the next session of Congress. Mr. Stickler, of Terra Alta, W. Va., will head the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which has been without a leader for two years. <-Snip->Mr. Bush nominated Mr. Stickler last year, but Senate Democrats have blocked the...

SIMI VALLEY How does Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito describe the last year, when he endured a bruising confirmation fight in the Senate to land a seat on the nation's highest court? "I sometimes feel as if I had an out of body experience," he said. Speaking Tuesday to a capacity crowd at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Alito described the highs and lows that came with being plucked from the relative quiet of a seat on the federal bench in New Jersey and landing in the spotlight of Washington politics. It was, he said, "certainly quite a change." Hounded...

The UN has appointed Antero Lopes as Acting Police Commissioner for the UN peacekeeping operation Timor East, the world body announced Tuesday. Lopes joined the UN Integrated Mission in East Timor (UNMIT) in mid-August. He had previously assisted in the planning of the police component of the new mission as a member of the assessment mission led by Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Envoy, Ian Martin, in June. From 1993 to 1995 Lopes served as a Regional Commander and Chief of Operations in the former Yugoslavia, where he was also co-founder of the project that lead to the Human Rights Commission...

SACRAMENTO The Coastal Commission has told an appointee of Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez that she should not show up to vote on a high profile Pebble Beach golf development because her appointment was made in violation of state law. The commission's executive director, Peter Douglas, said Monday that Elizabeth Brem's appointment as an alternate was not sanctioned by the commissioner she would represent. She agreed to skip the meeting, Douglas added. Nunez last week named four people to serve as commission alternates just days before the panel was set to vote on the Pebble Beach development, which is backed by...

SACRAMENTO — Republican lawmakers scolded Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday, telling him in a closed-door meeting how seriously his support among party stalwarts is wavering. --snip-- The Republican loyalists cast the hiring of Susan Kennedy, a top advisor to former Gov. Gray Davis, as a betrayal that raises a fundamental question about Schwarzenegger: Is he a Republican, or isn't he? "When my quarterback throws the ball to the other team, I've got worries," said Assemblyman Ray Haynes (R-Murrieta), in an interview after the meeting. Some of the lawmakers told the governor that unhappiness over the Kennedy appointment is widespread. There...

Top California Republicans are wondering if Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is moving left politically following his appointment to chief of staff of Susan Kennedy – a leading liberal activist and former aide to Democrat Gov. Gray Davis. "We're not moving anywhere," Schwarzenegger says, insisting that he is continuing to go "in the same direction." Some of his Republican colleagues wonder what direction that may be. "I'm getting more e-mails off of this [the Kennedy appointment] than I do for Viagra," said Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly, in an interview with the L.A. Times newspaper. "Since the special election,...

A mock Supreme Court argument in a gay-rights case reminds us that liberals sometimes agree with the next chief justice WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- You won't see John Roberts among the head shots of Supreme Court justices posted at the William & Mary Law School, site of the 2005-06 Supreme Court Preview. Instead of Roberts' face in the space reserved for the chief justice there is a question mark, a reflection of Roberts-like caution on the part of the organizers of this annual conference on the new court term. After all, Roberts hasn't been confirmed yet. But if Roberts is missing...

If President Bush wants to make a "diversity" pick for a Supreme Court nomination, must he swim shallow or deep in the pool of conservative minority and female possibilities? Conventional wisdom last week suggested that Bush, after tapping Judge John Roberts, a white male, for the position of chief justice, was unlikely to name another white male for the remaining high court vacancy, the seat currently held by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female justice. Of course, conventional wisdom immediately after O'Connor announced her impending retirement held that Bush would maintain or increase diversity on the high court in...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - President Bush is focused on Hispanics, African-Americans and women to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and he may announce his choice for her seat on the Supreme Court as early as the court's opening days in October, Republican strategists said on Wednesday. Republicans noted that it was still early in the process and that the strategists were putting forth a diverse selection of potential nominees in part to portray the White House as interested in people from politically important constituencies. The timing of the announcement, strategists said, could allow a nominee to be confirmed as early...

Senator Diane Feinstein today spoke a little about Supreme Court nominees, and what we can expect from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. She also let us in on what issues Liberals in the U.S. consider when they think of the rulings that affected them, and which they cherish the most. Feinstein told those gathered to hear her at a meeting of the L.A. County Bar Association that in her opinion the person chosen to replace Sandra Day O'Connor should be "balanced and Fair," and not come from either extreme. She then proceeded to give a history lesson to those gathered,...

Excerpts from the coming senate judiciary committee hearings on the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court. Arlen Specter (R-PA): Senator Allen, have you any questions of Judge Roberts? Senator Allen (R-VA): Yes I do. Good morning Judge Roberts. Judge Roberts: Good morning Senator. Allen: Your honor, my democrat colleagues on this committee have read tens of thousands of pages -- excuse me -- my democrat colleagues have had their STAFFS read tens of thousands of pages of documents and Lexis Nexis transcripts looking for some scandal to pin on you, and they have been unsuccessful. But I...

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In June, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid promised an up-or-down vote, but only if the White House opened sensitive files to Senate rummaging. The White House refused — and quite appropriately so. And so the game drags on. Well, again, it's time to bring it to a halt. Rumors abound in Washington that Bush will take the opportunity of a congressional recess to put Bolton in the U.N. in time for September's General Assembly convocation. The so-called recess appointment would keep Bolton on the job until February 2007 — and who knows what would happen then? Sure, such a course...

Perhaps Sen. Charles Schumer should have taken the Quiet Car. Here's what the New York Democrat reportedly was overheard saying the other day on Amtrak: "Even William Rehnquist is more moderate than they expected. The only one that resulted how they predicted [was] Scalia. So most of the time they've gotten their picks wrong, and that's what we want to do to them again." Whether or not this quote from the Drudge Report is accurate, the sentiment is correct: The litany of conservative disappointments over Supreme Court appointments is long. Earl Warren. Harry Blackmun. John Paul Stevens. Anthony Kennedy and...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, denying rumors of his retirement, said Thursday he will continue heading the court as long his health permits. "I'm not about to announce my retirement," he said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. "I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement," said Rehnquist, 80, and ailing with thyroid cancer. "I am not about to announce my retirement. I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits." Rehnquist released the statement hours after being released from an...

President Bush said today that his nominee for the Supreme Court may be someone who has never sat on the bench before. "Would I be willing to consider people who had never been a judge?" Mr. Bush said. "And the answer is, 'You bet.'" Mr. Bush said he had had "a very good meeting" on Tuesday with Senate leaders of both parties, who had encouraged him to look beyond the federal judiciary for candidates (...) "We're considering all kind of people," Mr. Bush said after a Cabinet meeting today. "Judges, non-judges. Laura gave me some good advice yesterday, which is...

Reid cited Justice Hugo Black of Alabama as a former senator who was appointed to the Supreme Court. Black, a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his youth, was appointed to the court by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937. “I think it is a great idea,” Reid said about the possibility of appointing a senator to the Supreme Court. “Some outstanding people have come from the Senate. The last was an ex-Ku Klux Klansman who turned out to be one of the greatest civil-rights jurists of all time.”

[SNIP] On Friday, with the announced retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor from the Supreme Court, It took a few minutes for the news to set in on Capitol Hill, among Republicans and Democrats alike. After all, even the White House in briefing Republican leadership on the Hill spoke in the belief that it would be Chief Justice William Rehnquist who is retiring. "The White House seemed to be expecting Rehnquist first, that was what my boss was getting briefed on," says a staffer for a Senator sitting on the Judiciary Committee. "We were told Rehnquist in July, possibly later this...

The Supreme Court and the Constitution Robert E. Cushman, The Supreme Court and the Constitution (Public Affairs Pamphlet, No. 7, 1936) pp. 1-36. The average citizen has a very wholesome respect for the Constitution of the United States. His respect does not usually come from any clear or accurate knowledge of the document itself, but grows out of the belief that the Constitution sanctions those policies which he approves and forbids those which seem to him dangerous or oppressive. His reaction to the Supreme Court is similarly direct and forthright; its decisions are sound if he likes them and unsound...