Free Republic

President George W. Bush's first Solicitor General, Ted Olson, filed a lawsuit in US district court on May 22 to protest Prop 8, the California law banning same sex marriage. Joining with his former opponent in Bush v Gore, David Boies, Olson is suing on behalf of two same-sex couples in California, The Advocate reports: Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier of Berkeley, who have been together for nine years and are the parents of four children, and Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo of Burbank, who have been together for eight years.

Former Bush administration solicitor general Theodore Olson is part of a team that has filed suit in federal court in California seeking to overturn Proposition 8 and re-establish the right of same-sex couples to marry.

With a backlog of applications piled up at the Justice Department, high-profile criminals and their well-connected lawyers increasingly are appealing directly to President Bush for special consideration on pardons and clemency, according to people involved in the process. Among those seeking presidential action are former junk-bond salesman Michael Milken, who hired former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, one of the nation's most prominent GOP lawyers, to plead his case for a pardon on 1980s-era securities fraud charges. Two politicians convicted of public corruption, former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) and four-term Louisiana governor Edwin W. Edwards (D), are asking Bush...

Two top attorneys who argued Bush v. Gore on opposite sides have now joined forces to strike down Prop 8 in federal court, filing for a preliminary injunction against same-sex marriage ban until the case is resolved, which would immediately reinstate the right for all Californians to marry. Theodore B. Olson and David will officially announce their case tomorrow morning in downtown, according to the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Olson, a former U.S. Solicitor General represented President Bush, against Al Gore, who was represented by Boies. The pair is representing two gay men and two gay women who were...

Perhaps more than anyone in Washington today, Theodore Olson knows the dangers of the path the Obama administration is traveling on the question of Bush-era terrorist interrogations. It's not just that Olson is one of the nation's top lawyers and a former high-ranking Justice Department official. It's not even that his wife Barbara was among those killed by terrorists on September 11, 2001. The thing that makes Olson's perspective so valuable is that his life includes not only those experiences but also a keen perspective on the way Washington investigations can run amok. In the 1980s, Olson was the subject...

One minute they were debating whether an anti-Hillary Clinton video could be shown during her Democratic primary campaign. And the next, U.S. Supreme Court justices launched into a spirited debate over whether election laws could lead to, say, banning books. “The government’s position is that the First Amendment allows the banning of a book if it’s published by a corporation?” Justice Samuel Alito asked incredulously. The case involved a much narrower question — whether the conservative advocacy group Citizens United could use a cable-based video-on-demand service to distribute its 90-minute anti-Clinton documentary. A panel of three district court judges found...

Mr. McCain stepped up his attempts to court the Republican right, scoring a number of high-profile endorsements this week. Yesterday, he received the support of billionaire Steve Forbes as well as former Solicitor General Theodore Olson. Mr. Olson, who served as assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, represented President Bush in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore. The picture was a bit mixed earlier in the week when Mr. McCain got near-simultaneous endorsements from moderates California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former New York Mayor and rival Rudy Giuliani, causing some consternation among party conservatives. Some prominent pundits, including...

When Rudy Giuliani left the race and threw his support behind John McCain, people wondered whether it would have much effect on the race. After all, the Mayor had faded badly in the Republican primaries after utilizing a strategy that made him largely irrelevant in the national media. However, Rudy brought two other endorsements that could help build bridges with disaffected conservatives if McCain wins the nomination. First came Ted Olson to provide reassurance on judicial nominations, and today Steve Forbes endorsed McCain, perhaps addressing his self-professed weakness on economics: U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today announced that Steve...

Thursday, January 31, 2008 JOHN MCCAINMcCain Picks Up Ted OlsonLooks like when Giuliani made his endorsement, one of his key backers moved with him: Jen Rubin hears Ted Olson, former Solicitor General (and a guy mentioned in recent Supreme Court and Attorney General vacancies) is backing McCain. I guess he's not worried about the comment in the Fund/Novak columns. 01/31 05:42 PM

GOP Hopeful's Mayoral Appointments At Odds With Pledge To Appoint Conservative Jurists. Presidential contender Rudy Giuliani has been winning over some conservative Republicans by promising to appoint judges in the mold of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and others who might seem likely to limit the reach of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Judges he named as New York mayor, however, could never be mistaken for Scalia. Giuliani's promise has helped overcome his abortion rights support as an issue for conservative voters. After all, the next president can do little about abortion except to name judges who interpret...

We are conservatives who are proud to support Rudy Giuliani for president. We support Rudy because he is a strong leader -- a man of action and a man of his word. And a big part of that is his proven effectiveness -- his record of actually changing things for the better in concrete, measurable ways. A perfect example of his leadership and proven effectiveness is Rudy's record on adoption. Rudy Giuliani dramatically increased the number of adoptions in the New York City system as mayor. Adoptions skyrocketed 133% over his eight year tenure compared to the eight years before...

To some extent, America knows Rudy Giuliani. They know him as “America’s Mayor,” the man who engineered the greatest urban Renaissance of my lifetime and who stood as a pillar of strength when our nation needed him most. But there is more to Rudy — much more to the man I have had the privilege to know since we first worked together in the Reagan Justice Department. .... . . . The breadth of Rudy Giuliani’s experience in the arenas of justice and [national] security is simply unmatched by any presidential candidate running today. Rudy has been an inspirational leader...

White House officials signaled to influential conservatives this weekend that Michael B. Mukasey, a nominee of President Ronald Reagan who is the former chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is the likely choice to replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, several Republicans close to the process told The Politico. "It came down to confirmability," said a former Justice Department official close to the conversations. Democrats and liberals are expected to view the choice as conciliatory, the Republicans said. Conservatives had been rooting for former Solicitor General Theodore B. (Ted) Olson, but Senator Majority...

WASHINGTON - Conservatives on Saturday lined up for and against potential attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey, the man they believe has ascended to the top of President Bush's list of replacements for Alberto Gonzales. Earlier in the week, Democrats in the Senate threatened to block confirmation of another prospect — Theodore Olson, a longtime GOP ally and former solicitor general who represented Bush before the Supreme Court in the contested 2000 presidential election. The behind-the-scenes battle over who will succeed Gonzales heated up over the weekend as the president, who was at Camp David, moved closer to announcing his choice....

Not content with having run Attorney General Alberto Gonzales out of town, the Democratic posse on Capitol Hill is already gunning for his replacement--even before he's nominated. More preposterous still, they're disguising this pre-emptive borking as a plea for a "consensus" choice. The breadth of this proposed condominium appears to be on the narrow side, however, running from Harry Reid to Pat Leahy, and perhaps stretching all the way to Chuck Schumer. Revealingly, this "consensus" doesn't seem to have room for Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General who is merely one of America's finest lawyers. "Ted Olson will not be...

To Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, Ted Olson is an unrepentant Republican, uniquely unqualified to succeed outgoing Alberto Gonzalez as U.S Attorney General. To Lanny Davis, he's an independent thinker perfect for the job. And to George Bush, he just might be a one-way ticket out of lame-duck Palookaville. In Wednesday's pre-emptive attack on the man who has yet to be nominated, let alone voice his acceptance, Nevada Democrat Reid told Reuters that, "[Olson]'s a partisan, and the last thing we need as an attorney general is a partisan." What a remarkable statement, even from the oft-erratic Senate majority leader,...

Senate Republicans on Wednesday fired a warning shot at Democrats on the White House’s still-unnamed attorney general pick as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared that front-runner Ted Olson would not be confirmed. The early sparring over the successor to Alberto Gonzales, who cedes power at the Justice Department on Friday, foreshadows a brutal confirmation battle to come. Minutes after Reid declared former solicitor general Olson was too partisan for the job, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fired a salvo at Democrats who would delay Gonzales’s replacement. “If they were serious when they cried out for new leadership at the...

ABC News' Ann Compton, Z. Byron Wolf and Theresa Cook Report: The confirmation battle for the next Attorney General is already heating up -- even before the White House has named a nominee for the post. ABC News has confirmed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Reuters this afternoon that "Ted Olson will not be confirmed." Olson, a former Solicitor General and Assistant Attorney General, has emerged as a top contender for the job, but Democrats have charged that his political leanings would influence his work as the nation's top law enforcement official, an accusation that has plagued...

If the buzz around Washington is correct, and Theodore Olson is nominated to be the new attorney general, Democrats may rue that they do not have Alberto Gonzales to kick around anymore. The appointment of Mr. Olson would send a clear signal to Congress that President Bush is not about to go soft during his last 15 months in office. He may have lost a loyal Texan friend in Mr. Gonzales, but the return of Mr. Olson to government would show that the president is determined to maintain his ideological equilibrium.-SNIP- The speculation making the rounds on Capitol Hill suggests...

Top Democrat vows to block possible Bush nominee 41 minutes ago Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed on Wednesday to block former Solicitor General Theodore Olson from becoming attorney general if President George W. Bush nominates him to replace Alberto Gonzales. Congressional and administration officials have described Olson as a leading contender for the job as the nation's chief U.S. law enforcement officer, but Reid declared: "Ted Olson will not be confirmed" by the Senate. "He's a partisan, and the last thing we need as an attorney general is a partisan," Reid told Reuters in a brief hallway interview on...