Parsky in The News Parsky Watch Archives
More Parsky Watch Parsky Watch - The Magazine Take the Parsky Watch IQ Test Visit the Parsky Watch Store	Back to Parsky Watch archives Parsky creating new liberal Judge Souters Parsky Watch #14 June 23, 2002 SHELLING OF PARSKY COMMISSION CONTINUES The shelling of the secretive judge-picking Parsky Commission continues day after day, as the lawsuit against this constitutionally-suspect Star Chamber gains exposure and its defenders dwindle in numbers and volume. White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez has made public his lack of confidence in the Parsky Commission, and the state’s GOP congressmen are increasingly vocal in criticizing the Parsky-Boxer-Feinstein Commission for usurping their rightful role in selecting district court nominees. Below are some recent articles covering the ongoing controversy. The going is certainly getting rough for Gerry, but he can take comfort in knowing his cohorts Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein and Norman Lear’s People for the American Way continue to defend his insistence on giving them veto power over who the Republican White House can put on the federal bench. Also joining the pro-Parsky bandwagon are Washington State’s two liberal Democrat U.S. Senators, who now want a Parsky Commission for their state. At least the Democrats appreciate what Gerry is trying to do. FEDERAL JUDICIAL NOMINATION PROCESS UNDER FIRE By Jason Hopp The Daily Recorder June 11, 2002 A rejected applicant for the U.S. attorney post in Los Angeles has filed suit to enjoin California's federal judicial nominations process, saying it violates federal open meeting laws. Patrick Manshardt, of the Individual Rights Foundation, filed the suit in Los Angeles federal court against both California senators and Gerald Parsky, a confidant of President Bush and head of the novel committee system employed in California. "In this case, Mr. Parsky decided to negotiate a deal with senators [Dianne] Feinstein and [Barbara] Boxer to have their own little secret meetings in California to decide whose name is going to go up," said Gary Kreep, executive director of the Escondido-based U.S. Justice Foundation, which filed the suit on behalf of Manshardt. The suit alleges that the committees violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act, an open meeting law. It seeks a preliminary injunction from U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz to stop the process in its tracks. It is also the latest salvo fired against Parsky by conservative Republicans who argue that the White House ceded too much to Democrats in giving them a voice in California's federal bench nominees. The move is sure to widen a rift within the state Republican Party that has some members shaking their heads. Republicans appear a house divided at a bad time -- just as the state gubernatorial race gets set to heat up over the summer. That Parsky is the target is key -- he was Bush's California campaign chairman during Election 2000 and is considered by many to be the president's closest contact in the state. He was also the main force behind a move to "professionalize" the state GOP party, which resulted in a significant loss of power for the party's conservative wing. Senators have a great deal of power over their home state nominees. Under current Senate rules, a senator can effectively block a nominee by not returning a "blue slip" -- analogous to a consent form -- when the nominee is sent to the Senate for approval. The committees were aimed at cutting off bipartisan fighting before it began. Six-person committees were established in each of the four federal districts in California, with three slots designated to each party. Once the committee determines a list of candidates, they are sent to Parsky for approval before he forwards the names to the White House. Although there was some criticism at first, it has grown in recent weeks. Most notably, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales has come out against bipartisan committees. Conservative state GOP leaders have also been vocal in opposition, arguing that the state's Republican House leaders should have been given the voice that Feinstein and Boxer received. Shawn Steel, California Republican Party chairman, used the editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times to rail against not only the committees, but Parsky himself. What the apparent division will mean for conservative GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon remains to be seen, but some party members have wondered privately what effect the criticism might have on Parsky's – and therefore the president's -- enthusiasm for Simon's candidacy. "Nobody's ever said I'm particularly bright," joked Kreep when asked about possible political implications of the suit. "Republicans are not above the law. Democrats are not above the law." Simon and Parsky have publicly patched a relationship strained by a past falling out between Parsky and Simon's father, former Treasury Secretary William Simon. The two formed the now-defunct investment house WSGP Partners, but split bitterly. There were reports that the elder Simon sought a greater role for his son in the firm. Steel said he had not seen the complaint, but was supportive of its aims. "I have talked to people in the White House Counsel's office and the Justice Department. There is hardly anyone in the administration that supports this," Steel said. As for the political implications of conservatives' criticism of Parsky's committees, Steel said: "I think Mr. Simon is bigger than just one person. "[Parsky] has no title. He wasn't elected to anything. The president has other friends [in California] that aren't so publicity-minded." Parsky did not return a phone call seeking comment. Parsky and Bush are, by all accounts, closely connected, and past public criticism of Parsky has been met with rebuke by the Simon campaign. Parsky was the fundraising chair when the Republicans held their national convention in Los Angeles in 1996, and when Bush decided to run for president he named Parsky to run his California campaign. Parsky, who runs the investment firm Aurora Capital Group, is a generous donor to the party, various candidates and lobbying groups. In 1999, for example, he made a single donation of $200,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee. He also accompanied President Bush on his recent trip to California. Insiders say the criticism is focused mostly on the Central District, where until recently there were six judicial vacancies. In contrast, in the Northern District, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe litigator Jeffrey White is expected to be nominated to the sole vacancy. The Republican half of each committee is also charged with finding candidates for the U.S. attorney and U.S. marshal. Although there was some criticism that the process is taking too long, the Central District committee, according to sources familiar with the process, has proposed enough candidates to fill the vacancies. Two have been officially nominated. Instead, Steel and Kreep suggested that the Democratic members were subjecting candidates to "litmus test" questions, such as seeking their position on abortion. In a recent interview, Northern District committee chair Joseph Russoniello defended his committee. "We've pretty much had a collegial and genial committee system," he said. Russoniello, dean of San Francisco Law School, also defended the bipartisan nature of the committees. "Certainly there is a very strongly held opinion here [in California] by conservative Republicans that every battle should be a pitched battle and that compromise is defeat. They're out to embarrass their enemy," he said. "I think even espousing that point of view is defeatist because it sets the opponent back on their heels and causes them to dig in." White House Counsel Gonzales has been opposed to bipartisan selection committees since at least Dec. 12, when he sent a letter to Washington state's two Democratic senators saying the White House feels they "have the effect of limiting the president's choices." However, that didn't stop Gonzales from playing ball with the senators after they threatened to withhold support for any nominee that wasn't the result of a bipartisan selection process. "It took a while, but [the White House counsel's office] eventually agreed," said Jed Lewison, a spokesman for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wa. Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wa., chose the six-member committee's three Republicans. Since 1978, Wisconsin has used a bipartisan commission that includes the deans of the state's two major law schools. There are 18 states that currently have no Republican senators, hamstringing Bush's ability to drum up Republican judge nominees in those states. Although Steel said he hadn't heard of the suit before it was filed, he and Manshardt are cut from the same ideological cloth. Manshardt is an attorney with the conservative Individual Rights Foundation, a group founded by David Horowitz. Steel once sent copies of Horowitz's book, "The Art of Political War," to 3,500 party leaders and activists. Manshardt is also notable for his representation of online journalist Matt Drudge in a libel suit filed by Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to President Clinton. Drudge had written a story accusing Blumenthal of covering up a history of spousal abuse. GOP CHAIRMAN CHARGES PROCESS IS PRODUCING DAVID SOUTERS CALIFORNIA JUDGE-PICKING PANELS UNDER FIRE By John Gizzi HUMAN EVENTS June 10, 2002 Los Angeles investment banker and Bushman Gerald Parsky, the de facto leader of the California Republican Party, is once again taking fire from the state's conservatives, this time because of the bipartisan panels he created for recommending to the White House candidates for federal judgeships in California. In keeping with the so-called Parsky Plan that engendered these panels, Republicans have relinquished equal power in the recommendation process to the state's two liberal Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. "Under this mechanism, we've had 13 nominees for the bench come out of the Los Angeles area alone and I'm worried that a new generation of David Souters has been created," California GOP State Chairman Shawn Steel told Human Events during a recent trip to Washington. Steel called for scrapping the year-old procedure in which, he said, "Boxer and Feinstein pre-select and veto federal judges for a Republican White House." Instead, he proposes that the administration should turn over the recommendation process to the 21 Republicans in California's U.S. House delegation and risk whatever retribution that draws from the two Democratic senators. We will get "better judicial candidates who have the blessings of [Republican Representatives] Chris Cox, Dana Rohrabacher, and Ed Royce," said Steel, "than Feinstein and Boxer." Under the unusual and unprecedented arrangement Parsky made with the Democratic senators, there is now a six-member committee in each of the state's four judicial districts. These committees are split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, and sign off on all potential federal judicial nominees in the state. The committees are charged with coming up with three candidates for every vacancy in their district. To be successful, a potential nominee needs to win the support of at least four of the six committee members. In other words, conservative nominees require support from at least one Democrat appointed by Boxer and Feinstein to have any chance of being nominated by President Bush. A conservative who gets past the committee then sits down with the 57-year-old Parsky, who interviews all three survivors of the Boxer-Feinstein gauntlet and makes recommendations to the White House on who should be appointed. Assisting Parsky in the process is Beverly Hills attorney Eric George, son of highly controversial California Chief Justice Ronald George, who cast the deciding vote on the state's Supreme Court to strike down the state's parental notification law. Steel and other conservatives maintain that the Republicans on the so-called "Parsky panels" are most often passive in the process, while the Democrats take their cue from Feinstein (who said earlier this year that Bush has "no mandate, in my view, to skew the courts to the right") and ask "litmus test" questions, including whether they support Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand. (The Washington Times reported on June 3 that at least two potential candidates told the paper they had been asked these types of questions. Parsky told the paper he knew of one such incident, and that he told Feinstein and the panel members that such a line of questioning was not permissible.) Conservatives complain that Parsky & Co. have passed over aggressive Republicans in selecting the GOP halves of the judicial panels. (For example, they cite the case of much-respected retired Judge Sheldon Sloan of Los Angeles, who played a key role in helping former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson select state judges and whose appointment to the federal judicial panel was widely expected, but never happened. Asked by Human Events if he was "passed over" by Parsky for the panel, Sloan said, "No comment.") On the panel for the Los Angeles district are Orange County lawyer Tom Malcolm (who served with Sloan on Wilson's judicial committee) and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Bird, both of whom have decent GOP credentials. The third GOP panelist, however, is Elwood Lui, who was named to the Superior Court and Court of Appeals by former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and who, according to one area Republican activist, "has never been seen at a Republican event nor known to write a check to a Republican candidate." Reached by Human Events at his Los Angeles office, Parsky defended the committee arrangement, although he insisted that "I didn't create" the original proposal for panels, that it did not come from him but from White House political director Karl Rove and White House Legal Counsel Alberto Gonzales. "This has been mischaracterized, and to say 'Parsky commission' or 'Parsky panel" is inaccurate," he told us. "[Rove and Gonzales] researched precedent and found there was none for selecting federal judgeships when a state has no U.S. senator or governor [from the President's party]." Parsky added that the choices to fill the GOP slots on the panels "are the White House's choice and all are strong Republicans. . . . [And] I only pass on people who satisfy the President's judicial philosophy." Interestingly, Gonzales himself now appears to be having second thoughts about this judge-picking mechanism. In response to a question following his luncheon address to the American Law Institute on May 16, the President's top lawyer said: "I haven't been overjoyed at the way the commission process has worked in California . . . [I]n terms of how quickly the President was able to nominate judges to the bench, California is probably the last. And I think it was probably because of the commission structure." Sounding a lot like Chairman Steel, Gonzales went on to tell the luncheon that he believes bipartisan commissions in general are "an encroachment upon the powers of the presidency, in terms of limiting who he can look to within the state to nominate to the federal bench." (Gonzales however, appeared to backtrack in a subsequent letter to Feinstein and Boxer May 20. "[W]e support the California commission," he told the senators, "and we are pleased it has provided candidates that the President is proud to nominate.") Feinstein spokesman Howard Gantman insisted that his boss and Boxer are "pleased" with the current method. "We've been working very well with Gerry Parsky," he said. People for the American Way spokesman Elliott Mincberg echoed this judgment: "The commissions lower the temperature on lower court nominations. It puts the advice back into 'advise and consent.'" And now the two senators from Washington State - left-wing Democrats Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell - are calling for a similar system for the selection of judges from their state.