July 6, 2005
Private: Morning Nomination Clips, Wednesday, July 6, 2005
This is the first installment of a new ACSBlog feature, Morning Nominations Clips. Our goal is to sort though the wealth of information available on this topic and provide you with a concise summary of the most important and interesting items relating to nominations each day. Much like the news clips compiled for senior government officials and members of Congress, we hope Morning Nominations Clips will be a valuable resource -- a quick read that gets you up to speed on these issues as soon as you turn on your computer each day.
Tom Goldstein's excellent-in-every-way Supreme Court Nomination Blog features a two-part analysis of Justice O'Connor's record in key areas including affirmative action, abortion and federalism and property rights, terrorism, gay rights and election law.
The New York Times reports that the White House and Senate leadership have asked their conservative allies to cool their rhetoric regarding the upcoming nomination, and especially to stop their attacks on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and instead repeat poll-tested phrases including "a need for a fair and dignified confirmation process." The Times report also has this on the timing of the nomination and hearings:
More strongly than ever, the White House suggested that the timing of an announcement would play out over several weeks, with a nominee probably named at the start of August, in time for four weeks of background checks ahead of confirmation hearings that would begin after Labor Day.
The Washington Post has story with numerous quotes from White House political advisor Karl Rove (who claims to have read the Federalist Papers over the holiday weekend, and -- perhaps less surprisingly -- that they completely support the administration's position). The piece also has quotes from several Democratic senators who were members of the "Gang of 14" indicating that in their view a nominee's extreme judicial philosophy can constitute "extraordinary circumstances" under the Gang's agreement regarding filibusters of judicial nominees.
Slate features a discussion of Justice O'Connor's jurisprudence and legacy among Dahlia Lithwick, Oona Hathaway (a former O'Connor clerk) and Emily Bazelon and Will Salletan examines the caluculations the Adminstration may be making on abortion politics and concludes:
The Supreme Court is one vote shy of upholding some very popular abortion restrictions. It's two votes shy-three, if you count replacing Chief Justice Rehnquist-of overturning Roe and blowing up the GOP. The perfect sequence is to give the pro-lifers O'Connor's and Rehnquist's seats and then-when Justice Stevens steps down and Roe really is on the line-give the rest of the country Gonzales.