Boxer jabs at Justice Brown, GOP

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 21, 2005 | by Josh Richman, STAFF WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO -- California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown is a right-wing extremist unfit for confirmation to a federal appeals court, and Republicans in Congress are exhibiting the height of arrogance by jamming her down Democrats' throats, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer said Friday.

Brown -- whom President Bush nominated in 2003 and renominated this year to the influential District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- is one of two nominees Senate Republicans have put forth in a showdown with the Democratic minority. It's expected to come to a head next week.

The GOP threatens to alter Senate rules to eliminate Democrats' ability to filibuster, or block through parliamentary tactics, confirmation votes for judicial nominees they oppose, a "nuclear option" stripping the Senate of its last vestiges of bipartisan cooperation. Democrats threaten to retaliate by effectively shutting down as much Senate business as possible.

Meeting Friday with reporters at Fort Mason, Boxer, D-Calif., called the judicial filibuster's elimination "a power grab of amazing proportions ... by the Republican majority." Having both houses of Congress and the White House "isn't enough for them," she said. "They want to control the judiciary. That's what this is all about."

Boxer noted that 208 of Bush's judicial nominees have been confirmed while Democrats have blocked only 10 -- a 95 percent success rate, she said, decrying Republican "arrogance to believe you're entitled to 100 percent" of what they want.

Republicans and Democrats alike have used judicial filibusters when it suited them, she said, citing cases from the 1968 GOP filibuster of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Abe Fortas to the attempted 2000 GOP filibusters of circuit judge nominees Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was among those who voted to filibuster Paez, she noted.

Democrats don't threaten filibusters lightly, but Brown is so radically conservative as to be unsuitable for confirmation, Boxer insisted.

The senator cited Brown's April 2000 speech to the Federalist Society at the University of Chicago Law School, in which she said, "Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is families undersiege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility; and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."

Boxer grimaced. "I don't know what country she's living in, but I think when government passes a seat-belt law, this doesn't happen."

She also cited some of Brown's 31 lone dissents from California Supreme Court opinions dealing with age discrimination; compelling religious employers to abide by state law requiring health benefits including contraception; and gun shows on public property.

"Yes, her life story is inspirational," Boxer said, referring to Brown's childhood as the daughter of Alabama sharecroppers. "But the issue is: What's she going to do to your life and the life of your children?"

Boxer said she supports bipartisan talks to avoid the "nuclear option," but blamed Frist for calling this showdown at all and particularly over someone like Brown. "There are so many good people out there -- good Republicans, good conservatives, people we would respect."

Backing Boxer at Friday's news conference was the Rev. Amos Brown, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's San Francisco chapter, as well as representatives from the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women and other groups.

In other matters, Boxer said she will not lift the hold she placed on Bush's nomination of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador until the State Department produces additional documents she has requested. But she acknowledged Republicans might simply override her hold. They need only 51 votes to do so, and hold 55 Senate seats.

Contact Josh Richman at jrichman@angnewspapers.com.