Lionesses of the Left Eat Judicial Nominees Alive
Feinstein and Boxer are exploiting a system to block conservatives
By Shawn Steel
May 26, 2002
The Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-000036979may26.story

Bush administration officials are furious and frustrated with Senate Democrats for holding hostage dozens of qualified conservative judicial candidates by refusing to allow floor votes on their nominations. Meanwhile, back in California, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, are squeezing the administration by threatening to blue-slip all the nominees who don't meet their political agenda. Even worse, they've been allowed to do this through a deal brokered by Republicans that was supposed to smooth the way for President Bush's judicial choices.

This untenable situation can partly be blamed on someone close to Bush: attorney Gerald L. Parsky, Bush's top political operative in California.

Shortly after Bush's inauguration, Parsky, who advises Bush on presidential appointments, convinced the newly installed White House counsel's office to gamble on a system of so-called bipartisan committees to screen judicial nominations. The idea was to come up with federal district court candidates who were acceptable to both parties and thus ensure speedy confirmation by the nearly evenly divided Senate.

Historically, in a state like California where both U.S. senators are from the opposition party, the judicial selection process falls to senior Republican members of the House delegation.

Parsky's plan usurped that precious prerogative in favor of a bizarre system of committees--half of whose members are appointed by Feinstein and Boxer. Four committees, each made up of six members, evaluate candidates for the federal bench in sessions that are closed to public scrutiny. No judicial candidate is forwarded to the White House unless four of the six members agree, but this gives Feinstein and Boxer de facto veto power over anyone the White House wants to place on the bench.

Not surprisingly, speedy confirmations remain theoretical. The bipartisan panels have proved to be an abysmal failure.

For example, shortly after announcing formation of the panels last year, Bush nominated Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) and Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Boxer, unrestrained by any sense of fairness you would think she might have--given her participation in the bipartisan panels--launched one of her trademark verbal tirades against Cox's nomination, which was withdrawn. Neither Boxer nor Feinstein has assisted Kuhl, whose nomination drifts in limbo as the wait for a hearing drags into its second year.

Feinstein has shown her true colors in two big votes involving judicial candidates from other states who didn't pass her ideological muster.

A couple of months ago, Feinstein, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, voted against allowing the full Senate to vote on Bush's nominee, Judge Charles Pickering. Last week, she did the same against Judge D. Brooks Smith. This is the same Feinstein who recently stated that Bush should not be free to choose his own nominees because of the narrowness of his election.

"There is no mandate, in my view, to skew the courts to the right," she was quoted as saying. "And so I think you're going to see a Judiciary Committee that's really going to be looking for mainstream judges."

"Mainstream judges" is a Democratic code phrase for traditional, big-government, anti-individual-freedom and anti-property-rights jurists. Let's face it, it is virtually guaranteed that no conservative scholars--no matter how highly qualified--can survive the Boxer-Feinstein gantlet.

The bipartisan committee process has been conducted like a modern-day Star Chamber, shrouded in secrecy. The lack of open and recorded hearings makes for great mischief. More than one judicial district judge candidate has told me of being asked to state a position on Roe vs. Wade. One told me he was asked about his involvement in the Catholic Church. These kinds of questions are clearly improper.

The rumblings over judicial selection are getting louder. Even Alberto Gonzalez, a close Bush advisor and White House counsel, expressed somber dissatisfaction last week with the Parsky-designed district committees.

The bipartisan committees are a half-baked idea that has served as a weapon for Boxer and Feinstein to prevent Bush from placing conservative judges on the federal bench. These two lionesses of the left have taken Parsky's naive creation and are using it to eat him--and the president's judicial appointment power--alive.

The only solution is to return to the time-honored tradition of entrusting the selection of federal judge candidates to senior federal elected members of the president's party. It is a proven system that works.

Shawn Steel is the chairman of the California Republican Party. E-mail: shawnsteel@shawnsteel.com.

Bush sells out on state's judges
May 26, 2002
By Steven Greenhut
The Orange County Register

Anyone who still believes that George W. Bush is conservative ought to pay attention to the way his administration is selecting federal judges from California. In an effort to get along with Democratic senators, the president has largely turned over the judicial selection process to Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

The sellout was the brainchild of Bush's top operative in California, Los Angeles investor Gerald Parsky - a "moderate" who has said his own party is viewed as extremist.

Parsky, who orchestrated the takeover of the state's Republican Party structure by moderates last year, devised a clever way to keep principled conservative or libertarian judges off of district courts.

In the name of bipartisanship, Parsky, with the backing of the White House, proposed commissions (with six members for each of California's four judicial districts) which send judicial nominees to the White House. Boxer and Feinstein choose half the members, and Parsky chooses the other half. Conservatives are out in the cold, even if Boxer and Feinstein throw an occasional bone their way.

The White House counsel has issued some protests at the California system's usurpation of the president's judge-selection power, but Bush adviser Karl Rove is defending the system. So is the Los Angeles Times and left-wing activist groups throughout the state, who can't believe the White House has given liberals the power to select candidates.

Typically, candidates are selected by the senators from the president's party, or the governor if there is no senator from that party. Candidates are sent to the White House, which makes the final choice and sends the nominations along to the Senate Judiciary Committee. With no GOP senator or governor in California, the task should go to the leading GOP members of Congress from California.

That would lead to some fairly conservative nominees, so instead of going that route, the "moderates" have basically given veto power over nominations to liberals.

Granted, the Democrats control the Senate and have been bottling up nominees who are even remotely conservative, so some accommodation with them is necessary. But this isn't the first time Republicans have faced a Democratic Senate. No need to sell out. Simply fight for the nominees like principled leaders would do. But that would take a White House with principle.

San Jose Mercury

Federal judicial choices prompt grumbling
GOP CRITICS SAY DEMOCRATS HAVE TOO MUCH POWER IN PROCESS
By Howard Mintz
San Jose Mercury News
May. 26, 2002

The Bush administration and California's two Democratic senators cut a unique deal nearly a year ago that was supposed to take the political rancor out of choosing federal judges across the state.

But as the White House has moved in recent months to find candidates for eight federal judgeships, including one in the Bay Area, the bipartisan approach -- which uses a selection committee of three Republicans and three Democrats -- is showing signs of trouble. Conservative Republicans are attacking the process for allowing too much Democratic influence into judge selection and for shutting out qualified candidates. Even the White House has given it lukewarm reviews.

For a state that could have as many as a dozen more of these lifetime appointments up in the coming years, the fate of the process is no small matter.

Tensions over judicial nominations are already running high between the Democrat-controlled Senate and the White House, and officials warn nomination fights common in other states could take place here if California's political pact falls apart.

Friction over the process is not expected to sidetrack Bay Area lawyer Jeffrey White's pending nomination to the San Francisco federal bench. Although many local Republicans are dissatisfied with the process behind White's selection, he is not considered controversial. Lawyers close to the process say White, a former federal prosecutor and top litigator whose clients have included Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Seibel Systems, will be nominated any day.

However, while White's nomination appears secure, the process by which he was selected may not be.

Critic backpedals

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez said during a speech earlier this month that he has not ``been overjoyed at the way the commission process has worked in California.'' Gonzalez backed off slightly last week in a letter to Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, saying that he is only frustrated with the pace of the process and supports the bipartisan approach.

But both Republicans and Democrats say it is a tenuous peace.

``It's all coming to a head,'' said a Democratic member of one of the California committees.

Traditionally, senators from the president's political party play a major role in naming their home state's federal District Court judges, who decide issues ranging from cyberlaw to death penalty appeals. But that time-honored system doesn't always work in states that have a situation like California's.

Already, major conflicts have broken out over judge selection in other states with two Democratic senators, notably Florida and Washington. And Congress and the White House are warring over the president's choices for federal appeals courts. In fact, for nearly a year Boxer has been behind the effort to tie up the nomination of Los Angeles judge Carolyn Kuhl to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

When it comes to selecting district judges, California is the only state to use committees made up of three Republicans and three Democrats.

That has soured conservatives who say that many candidates who might be favored by the White House never reach the president's desk, filtered out by Democrats on the committees.

``It's bad precedent,'' said John Nowacki, director of legal policy for the Washington, D.C.-based Free Congress Foundation, an influential conservative group. ``I don't like the idea of the president giving up nominations power, even in a slight degree like this.''

On the surface, the compromise between the White House and Feinstein and Boxer appears safe, as all sides say they remain committed to making it work.

Quality nominees

``It's easy to indict the process,'' said Eric George, co-chairman of Bush's statewide judge commission. ``But we believe the committee structure has been validated by the quality of the nominees and the quick pace of their Senate confirmations.''

Bush's California nominees have thus far breezed through the Senate. Just last month, senators confirmed two judges in Los Angeles, both of whom received strong support from Feinstein and Boxer.

In the Bay Area, many Republicans are unhappy with the way the process played out in choosing White to succeed San Francisco U.S. District Judge Charles Legge, who retired last June. A number of Republicans and Democrats say the White House also wasn't satisfied with the search to replace Legge, and eventually demanded more candidates.

That resulted in Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Leslie Nichols making the final cut for the judgeship, one of five candidates to be interviewed by the White House before White got the nod.

Defenders of the system, while declining to discuss specific candidates, say only lawyers on the ideological fringes are affected by the inclusion of Democrats on the committees.

Joseph Russoniello, San Francisco's former U.S. attorney and chairman of the Bay Area selection committee, and others denied any White House dissatisfaction with the San Francisco search, saying more candidates were sought only after one candidate, Kevin Ryan, was picked to be San Francisco U.S. attorney.

Russoniello is among a group of Republicans who defend the process but admit they would prefer running their own judicial selection show. That will only happen if Republicans gain control of the Senate, which must confirm Bush's judge choices.

``I hope it happens,'' Russoniello said. ``But any time you have division between the political branches of government, some accommodation has to be made.''