Free Republic

IS JANICE Rogers Brown, the California Supreme Court justice who was just confirmed by the U.S. Senate to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, more mainstream than the Congressional Black Caucus? I'm sure the caucus wouldn't agree. It's members opposed Brown's nomination from the start. In 2003, Maryland's own Rep. Elijah Cummings, who was then CBC chairman, said that Brown was one of several of President Bush's nominees "who are out of the mainstream of America." Brown's supporters noted that the last time her name appeared on a California ballot, she received 76...

WASHINGTON, June 8 - Janice Rogers Brown, the African-American daughter of Alabama sharecroppers who was confirmed Wednesday to the federal appeals court here, often invokes slavery in describing what she sees as the perils of liberalism. "In the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery," she has warned in speeches. Society and the courts have turned away from the founders' emphasis on personal responsibility, she has argued, toward a culture of government regulation and dependency that threatens fundamental freedoms. "We no longer find slavery abhorrent," she told the conservative Federalist Society a few years ago. "We embrace it."...

"A Whiter Shade of Pale": Sense and Nonsense —The Pursuit of Perfection in Law and PoliticsSpeech of Janice Rogers Brown,Associate Justice, California Supreme CourtThe Federalist Society University of Chicago Law School April 20, 2000, Thursday 12:15 p.m.Thank you. I want to thank Mr. Schlangen (fondly known as Charlie to my secretary) for extending the invitation and the Federalist Society both for giving me my first opportunity to visit the City of Chicago and for being, as Mr. Schlangen assured me in his letter of invitation, "a rare bastion (nay beacon) of conservative and libertarian thought." That latter notion made your...

Yesterday the Senate reached a Compromise on confirmation hearings on certain judicial nominees. But “compromise” normally means an agreement between opposing parties where both make concessions and commit to keeping the bargain. By that standard, this is no compromise. It is, as Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Allow me to prove the point. The 14 signing Senators committed to vote to close debate on the nominations of Priscilla Owen, Janice Brown, and William Pryor for various Circuit Courts. They made no commitment on nominees William Myers and Henry...

Priscilla Owen, 50, is one of the more talented women of her generation. She finished third in her class at Baylor Law School. She had the best score in the state on the Texas bar exam when she took it in 1977. Her performance as a judge on the Texas Supreme Court has earned her the highest rating from the American Bar Association. It's the sort of career that liberals promoting the advancement of women should swoon over. But Senate Democrats are blocking her nomination to a federal appeals court, not just because she is supposedly too conservative, but because...

As the battle over judicial nominees and the role of the filibuster reaches its decisive moment, let's remember that more is at stake than the rules and procedures of the Senate. Resorting to half-truths and invective to advance a political objective — the establishment of a new 60-vote supermajority requirement for the confirmation of federal judges — is deeply unfair to those who have spent a lifetime building reputations for fairness and intellectual probity. Take the case of two women now at the center of the filibuster controversy, Justices Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. In describing Justices Owen and...

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans on Tuesday picked Texas judge Priscilla Owen to be the flashpoint of a historic battle over the powers of the White House and minority parties in the Senate to shape the federal judiciary, with the vote expected to occur next week. A small group of moderate senators worked furiously behind the scenes to head off what's been dubbed the "nuclear option" because of its potential for escalating parliamentary warfare between Democrats and Republicans that could stall President Bush's legislative agenda. Republicans announced that Owen's nomination for an appeals court seat will be the vehicle for the...

WASHINGTON — Just days after a bitterly divided Senate committee voted along party lines to approve her nomination as a federal appellate court judge, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown told an audience Sunday that people of faith were embroiled in a "war" against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots, according to a newspaper account of the speech. Brown's remarks come as a partisan battle over judges has evolved into a national debate over the proper mix of God and government and as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) ponders changing the chamber's rules...

WASHINGTON, April 20 - As the Senate moves ever closer to a partisan showdown over confirming President Bush's judicial choices, the Judiciary Committee is expected to vote along party lines on Thursday to approve at least two nominees certain to attract a Democratic filibuster in the full Senate. That is fine with those Republicans and their conservative allies who are pressing for a change in Senate rules to prevent filibusters on judicial nominees, an action that could plunge the chamber into an angry deadlock. The reason the champions of a rule change are pleased is that they believe the two...

I’d never heard of a triple black dog double dare to infinity before last weekend. I learned about that fearsome fate from my five-year-old grandson, Mackenzie Watson. I understood it immediately because I was once a five-year-old boy. Plus, my family are willing to swear that I still have those tendencies. To make a long story short, that black dog dare got Mackie in trouble at his kindergarten. He explained he never would have given himself a “swirly” except that another student made that dare. In this case, a swirly means to go in the boy’s bathroom, stick your head...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republican leaders have decided to begin their use of the "nuclear option" -- forcing confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominations with a majority Senate vote -- on an African-American woman blocked by Democrats from a federal judgeship. Associate Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court was one of 16 Bush nominees for U.S. appellate courts whose confirmation was prevented by Democratic filibusters in the last Congress. With Republicans still short of the 60 senators needed to limit debate, the nuclear option will seek to confirm judges with a simple majority vote through parliamentary maneuvers. Republican...

Will Senate Republicans go "nuclear" for California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown? Columnist Robert Novak reported recently that in March, the GOP will use Brown's now- stalled nomination to the federal bench as a test run for the "nuclear option" - a strategy to foil Democratic filibusters and confirm judges with a simple majority vote, through parliamentary hardball. ... But Brown's star power derives from more than her impressive personal story. She is an intellectual leader of California's high court and its most articulate voice for limited government and individual freedom. A judge's first and last duty, in her...

(CNSNews.com) - A religious watchdog group is blasting the Bush administration for re-submitting the nominations of judges the group has urged the Senate to defeat. On Monday, Bush re-nominated 20 failed judicial nominees, some of which have been denounced by liberals as "right-wing extremists." Americans United for Separation of Church and State Tuesday criticized the Bush administration's "stubbornness" for re-submitting William Pryor and Janice Rogers Brown for nomination to the federal bench. "This administration is bent on radically re-making the federal bench," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, in a press release. "No one can take...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - President Bush plans to renominate 20 candidates for federal judgeships who have been unable to win confirmation in the Senate, the White House said today, in a signal that the president is ready for a showdown early next year. "An effective and efficient judicial system is vital to ensuring justice for all Americans," the White House said. "The president nominated highly qualified individuals to the federal courts during his first term, but the Senate failed to vote on many nominations." Senate Democrats have maintained for months that they have routinely confirmed nominees who are not right-wing...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With the potential to nominate as many as three or four Supreme Court justices, there is little doubt that one legacy President Bush will have is how he shaped the views of the nation's top judicial panel. When Bush begins nominating new justices to replace the aging members of the court, one of the key battles will revolve around abortion. A recentCBS-New York Times poll found that 64 percent of those polled said they thought Bush would appoint pro-life judges who favor making abortion illegal. They may be right. A survey of the most often discussed...

Senate Democrats were recently caught red-handed plotting to stall President Bush's judicial nominees to influence the outcome of important decisions. Will the Democrats now resort to a threatened filibuster, in hopes that a President Howard Dean will appoint judges more to their liking? The Constitution requires Senate confirmation of presidential judicial appointments, a process intended to focus on qualifications, not party registration. Having scuttled the nomination of Miguel Estrada, they are now setting their sights on California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown. In nominating Justice Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, President Bush...

Six-year-old Janice swept the porch of her grandmother's home in Luverne, Ala. "Whatever you're going to be in life, you be the best," her grandmother, Beulah Allen, admonished. "If you sweep floors, do it so well that when you finish they'll say that you swept floors the best and cleanest they've ever seen! Ten years later, they'll still be talking about what a good job you did." Resting on a bench, Janice contemplated the lively conversations and debates she heard on that porch. In the 1950s, African-American families in Alabama had a great deal to talk about. Jim Crow was...

Going “Mainstream” By the Numbers The Irony of Barbara Boxer’s Attack on Justice Brown [Carol Platt Liebau] 11/17/03    Back when Richard Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, Senator Roman Hruska responded to attacks on Carswell’s abilities by commenting, “There are millions of mediocre Americans, and they, too, deserve to be represented in the United States Supreme Court!" Watching California’s U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer attack and oppose California’s Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown – who has been nominated by President Bush for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – calls that old...

by John Gizzi Posted Nov 14, 2003 As Senate Republicans last week conducted a marathon 30 hours of debate to protest and spotlight the Democrats' unprecedented filibuster to block confirmation of appeals court judges, President Bush called three of his nominees into the Oval Office and threw down the gauntlet to the obstructionist Senate Democrats. Flanked by Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown and California Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl, Bush said, "These people deserve an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor, and yet a few senators are playing politics and it's wrong and...

BY JAMES TARANTO Monday, November 10, 2003 1:04 p.m. EST Strange Bedfellows Here's an interesting tidbit about Janice Rogers Brown, who faces a likely Democratic filibuster against her nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It turns out that when Gov. Pete Wilson appointed her to the California Supreme Court in 1996, she faced opposition--from pro-lifers. This is from the May 1996 issue of San Diego NewsNotes, published by the Concerned Citizens for Life (fifth item): http://www.sdnewsnotes.com/ed/notes/0596note.htm Governor Pete Wilson is packing the state supreme court with more pro-abortion judges. Wilson has nominated Ronald...

Columnists' Corner "Janice Brown: Guilty of ‘Judging while Honest’" By John Armor Janice Brown, a Judge on the California Supreme Court, has just been nominated by President Bush for a seat on the US Circuit Court for the D.C. Circuit. This Court is “first among equals” of the federal Circuit Courts, because most cases and appeals concerning the legality of actions by all federal agencies go to this Court before coming to the Supreme Court. The attacks on Ms. Brown have begun. They are vicious, ignorant and racist, and they are led by the New York Times. Does that...

<p>Washington -- Democrats made clear Thursday they intend to block California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown from the nation's highest appellate court, even as she won 10-9 party-line approval of her nomination by the Senate Judiciary Committee.</p> <p>Brown, an outspoken African American conservative and the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper, became the latest lightning rod for opposition to President Bush's conservative court nominees as her home-state senator, Dianne Feinstein, led the united Democratic opposition to the judge's confirmation on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.</p>

  Thursday, Nov. 6, 2003 Sharpton Urges Democrats to Stop Obstructing Justice Brown Hooray for Al Sharpton, for showing he's not just some Jesse Jackson-like puppet reciting lines from the Democrat establishment's script. Sharpton on Wednesday urged Senate Democrats not to filibuster President Bush's nomination of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, the nation's second-highest federal court. Brown, who has the nerve to be a conservative black woman who follows the U.S. Constitution in her rulings, is under vicious attack from all the usual intolerant groups of left-wing hatemongers. "I...

...SNIP... That President Bush may view California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown as a future U.S. Supreme Court justice could explain why he nominated her to the D.C. court, 3,000 miles from her San Francisco base. But during her seven years on California's high court, Brown has shown doctrinaire and peculiar views that make her a troubling choice for this appeals court. Judges are supposed to consider disputes with an open mind, weighing facts against the law and precedent. Conscientious judges sometimes find that their decisions conflict with their personal beliefs. However, in opinions and speeches, Brown has articulated...

Judging Janice Rogers Brown By Harold Johnson and Timothy Sandefur FrontPageMagazine.com | November 5, 2003 California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, President Bush's nominee to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, is the target of some of the most inflammatory opposition since Clarence Thomas took his seat before the Senate Judiciary Committee more than a decade ago. Don't expect this strafing to end with the committee's vote on Brown (along party lines, most likely), which might happen this week. As things stand now, she could be the latest Bush nominee to face a...

Washington, DC 11-4-03 As the unprecedented filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees in the U.S. Senate continue to multiply, Republican Senators struck back hard against the Democrats this morning in a Capitol Hill press conference. The purpose of the event was to rally support for the President’s nomination of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals; a nomination that has garnered yet another filibuster threat from Senate Democrats. Phyllis Berry Myers of the Centre for New Black Leadership (CNBL), who helped to organize today’s effort, said, “This is the first salvo in our...

By: Andy Obermann 21 October 2003 We’ve all known for a long time now that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) are nothing more than extensions of the ultra-liberal, Democratic Party agenda. The primary goal of these entities is to deliver the minority vote to Democratic candidates. Time and time again the NAACP and CBCF have failed to serve the people they so claim to support. Beginning with Clarence Thomas, continuing through Miguel Estrada, and now even with Janice Rogers Brown, these not-for-profit organizations show their political stripes, whenever...

<p>The atmosphere in the hearing room was genteel, the moves as formal as a minuet. But, as Janice Rogers Brown might have said, viewing it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.</p> <p>The scene played out last week in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering President Bush's nomination of Brown, a California Supreme Court justice from Sacramento, to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The soft-spoken Brown is said to be on Bush's short list for eventual appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.</p>

Did I just hear Thomas Soul say, on Rush's show, that Bush's SC nominee argued against owning a gun in California because it wasn't in the states constitution!?

<p>Meet Janice Rogers Brown, the latest judicial nominee headed for a filibuster. Senate Democrats would have you believe this black seven-year veteran of California's Supreme Court is somehow not qualified to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.</p>

Your Senators Must Hear From You On Justice Janice Rogers Brown! California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown has been nominated by President Bush to serve on the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. Her nomination is being opposed by special interest groups like People for the American Way (PFAW) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). These groups published a document called "Loose Cannon" that attacks Judge Brown's record on the California Supreme Court. These groups are falsely charging that Judge Brown is anti-government, anti-civil rights, and an enemy of the poor. In a recent...

The nomination of Janice Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the latest judicial appointment to touch off major opposition. Brown is strikingly libertarian in her writings and decisions, which is one reason she has outraged both liberals and conservatives during her distinguished career. Brown currently serves as associate justice of the California Supreme Court, where she has distinguished herself as a passionate and consistent defender of individual rights. The D.C. Circuit is considered the second most important federal court, and is often a springboard to the Supreme Court. Indeed, three of the...

Good Judge The case for Janice Brown By Clint Bolick The nomination of Janice Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the latest judicial appointment to touch off major opposition. Brown is strikingly libertarian in her writings and decisions, which is one reason she has outraged both liberals and conservatives during her distinguished career. Brown currently serves as associate justice of the California Supreme Court, where she has distinguished herself as a passionate and consistent defender of individual rights. The D.C. Circuit is considered the second most important federal court, and is often...

Sharecropper's daughter threatened with Dem filibuster for being 'arch-conservative' "Of the many unworthy judicial nominees President Bush has put forward, Janice Rogers Brown is among the very worst." That's how the New York Times began its editorial Saturday in a campaign Republicans, libertarians, conservatives and Christians see as increasingly familiar. They say they've seen this script before – first with Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, again with the Clarence Thomas nomination and more recently with federal bench nominee Miguel Estrada. But proponents of the nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals think Senate Democrats may have overplayed their hand...

Bill Clinton finally weighed in on the Senate Democrats' filibuster of Bush's judicial nominees: "I simply ask the United States Senate to heed this plea, and vote on the highly qualified judicial nominees before you, up or down." Bill Clinton has come out swinging against Tom Daschle's filibuster of President Bush's judicial nominees:I simply ask the United States Senate to heed this plea, and vote on the highly qualified judicial nominees before you, up or down. The only problem is, Clinton made that argument during his 1998 State of the Union speech. Now that George W. Bush is in...

Janice Brown, a Judge on the California Supreme Court, has just been nominated by President Bush for a seat on the US Circuit Court for the D.C. Circuit. This Court is “first among equals” of the federal Circuit Courts, because most cases and appeals concerning the legality of actions by all federal agencies go to this Court before coming to the Supreme Court. The attacks on Ms. Brown have begun. They are vicious, ignorant and racist, and they are led by the New York Times. Does that sound like an excessive charge against the opponents of Ms. Brown? Read on....

<p>Does the limbo of the filibuster await Janice Brown in Washington, D. C.? Even her fans, those who don't relish her departure from California's high court, don't wish it to be delayed at the hand of Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy or Harry Reid.</p>

Dems Turn To Political Hate Speech To Defeat Qualified Judicial Nominee Only Consider Candidates Who Support Their Liberal Political Agenda"And then there's Janice Brown, an African-American on the California Supreme Court nominated for the D.C. Circuit. Democrats are plowing for any excuse to filibuster her, lest Mr. Bush someday decide to promote her to the U.S. Supreme Court. Modern liberalism's ultimate nightmare is a black conservative woman in a position of moral authority." (Editorial, "Rainbow Filibuster Coalition," The Wall Street Journal, 10/15/03)JUSTICE BROWN HAILED AS EVEN-HANDED, INTELLIGENTBipartisan Group Of California Law Professors Describe Justice Brown As Having "High Intelligence" And...

It's quite amazing how the liberal press and those of the left in our government can take a truth and completely invert it for their own political gain. Take the matter of President Bush's nominee for the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Janice Rogers Brown. Here again we have an excellent candidate -- one, in fact, who is rated as qualified by the American Bar Association and who has consistently ruled on the word of law rather than acquiesced to the role of judicial activist that so many liberal judges have adopted. Yet we are hearing "pre-emptive"...

The Left vs. An African-American JusticeBy Henry Mark HolzerFrontPageMagazine.com | October 24, 2003 For many years, American Leftists and other assorted collectivists lobbied for an African-American (the descriptive term in those days was “Negro”) to be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.  Despite the obvious racism driving that agenda, in 1967 then-President Lyndon B. Johnson obliged by naming veteran Civil Rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to the High Court. In time, Marshall’s appointment and his tenure allowed people of all races to take their naked racism to the next level. It wasn’t enough that a Black had made...

It’s quite amazing how the liberal press and those of the left in our government can take a truth and completely invert it for their own political gain. Take the matter of President Bush’s nominee for the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Janice Rogers Brown. Here again we have an excellent candidate, one who is rated as qualified by the American Bar Association and who has consistently ruled on the word of law rather than acquiesce to the role of judicial activist that so many liberal judges have adopted. Yet we are hearing “pre-emptive” rumblings about how...

WASHINGTON - Federal appellate nominee Janice Rogers Brown on Wednesday defended her work as a conservative California jurist and said the personal opinions expressed in some of her speeches would stay separate from her role on the bench. Brown, a California Supreme Court justice, has been nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a court that is seen by many as a training ground for the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites). But her conservative positions worry Democrats, who at a Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) confirmation hearing criticized what they called...

No matter which party controls the White House, Americans expect the President to nominate qualified, intelligent, and fair-minded candidates to preside in our federal courtrooms. These men and women of distinction need to adhere faithfully to binding precedent issued by higher courts and defer to the policy choices made by the political branches of government. They must faithfully follow the law wherever it leads them, even in the face of intense pressure from those who wish for the law to be ignored in favor of politically popular outcomes. Fulfilling this ideal is even more pressing when it comes to the...

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown will face the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday as a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and many civil rights groups are speaking out against her. Like several of George Bush's far right federal appellate nominees, Brown has drawn opposition ever since she was nominated last July. But progressives consider Brown even more dangerous, given that she is rumored to be a possible pick for the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites). As an African-American woman who was raised by sharecroppers in Alabama, the 54-year-old jurist would...

"The preservation of a viable constitutional government is not a task for wimps." So said California's state Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown. If there is any doubt about that, those doubts are sure to be erased during Justice Brown's confirmation hearings to become a member of the federal Court of Appeals in Washington. The lynch mob atmosphere that has prevailed during confirmation hearings for judges who believe in upholding the Constitution is already in evidence among the special interest groups who are more concerned with their own political agendas than with anything as abstract as the rule of law. Justice Brown...

Democrats have long claimed to be the party of the "other" guy. They take great pride in telling women, minorities, or those of some "special" classification, that the only political party which adequately addresses their unique needs is the Democrat Party. However, the "needs" of these groups are not what drive the Democrats to clamor for their attention. Rather, it is the fact that these groups have traditionally voted Democrat that earns them the attention of the Democrat Party elite. Take a women or a minority who happens to be a conservative, and the needs of that person are...

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to meet today to take up the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia. The appearance is certain to be too little and too late to correct a well-orchestrated campaign of misinformation. Left-wing political groups like the NAACP, the Black Congressional Caucus and the misnamed People for the American Way have been working for months to create a strong negative impression of this nominee, suggesting that Brown, though female and black, has turned her back on their interests and on Americans in general.It...

The attacks by partisan special interest groups against Justice Janice Rogers Brown may succeed as fundraising tools and sound bites, but their rhetoric withers in the light of the facts...

Liberal activists are trying to defeat the nomination of Judge Janice Brown to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, probably because she doesn't believe that the Court of Appeals should be used as a platform for liberal judicial activism. An appeals court exists to determine whether or not the law has been followed properly, and not to right all of the wrongs that appear in the cases it examines. California Supreme Court Associate Justice Janice Brown should appear to anyone an ideal candidate for the federal appeals bench. She is the daughter of Alabama sharecroppers who found her way to...

W hen I was a law student in California, a mentor who would later become my boss asked me what I knew about a fairly new California Supreme Court Justice named Janice Brown. "Nothing," I had to admit sheepishly. I'd never heard of her. But I knew that if such a question was coming from this mentor -- a person whose ideological compass points unfailingly in the direction of individual rights --Brown had to be worth checking out. Several years later, Justice Janice Brown has indeed proven herself worth checking out and, what is more, deserving of a ringing endorsement....