Tag: Democratic Party

Ohio Democrats to Democratic judge: Don’t run for chief justice; you could win!

The perverse nature of choosing judges through partisan elections is currently on display in Ohio, where some Democrats see no benefit to a highly qualified member of their own party running for chief justice.

The state’s current chief justice, Maureen O’Connor, is retiring in 2022, and two associate justices of the state supreme court, Patrick DeWine and Jennifer Brunner, are considering running for the open seat. In Ohio, where judges must run in partisan primaries, their party affiliation is well-known. DeWine is a Republican and Brunner is a Democrat. The retiring O’Connor is also a Republican.

Justice Brunner may well make an excellent chief, and she is certainly saying all the right things about serving the people of Ohio. But to some Democratic bean-counters, a Brunner victory only has potential downside.

Here’s why: If Brunner becomes chief justice, her current seat in the state supreme court could be filled by Governor Mike DeWine.* DeWine, a Republican, would presumably appoint a Republican judge to that seat, meaning no net gain on the court for the Democrats. Moreover, if Brunner becomes chief justice, she will only be able to serve one full six-year term before hitting the mandatory retirement age, meaning that she would have to step down from the court after the 2028 election. If she remained in her current position, however, she could in theory stay on the court until 2032.

If you subscribe to the view that judges are simply legislators in robes, maintaining a certain number of (D)s and (R)s on the court is more important than each judge’s skill, integrity, experience, and temperament. But if you view judges as actual people with professional pride and commitments to excellence, treating them as fungible back-benchers is both inaccurate and insulting.

I have no view about who would make the best chief justice for Ohio. But I do know that it has little to do with a forced party affiliation, and much more to do with people skills, administrative capacity, ambition, effort, intelligence, and drive. I hope that Ohioans agree.

* Yes, Mike DeWine is related to Justice Brunner’s opponent, Patrick DeWine. They are father and son, respectively.

Senate Democrats continue obsession over religious beliefs of federal judicial nominees

In recent years, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have generated a long list of wildly inappropriate questions and comments regarding the religious backgrounds of federal judicial candidates. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) has led the charge, backed up by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and others.

Now they’re back at it. Last week Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) asked New Jersey district court nominee Zahid Quraishi, “What do you know about Sharia law?”

Quraishi, currently a U.S. Magistrate Judge with outstanding legal credentials, responded that he knew nothing about Sharia. (Quraishi was and raised in New Jersey, the son of Pakistani Muslim immigrants.)  And there is no reason to believe that he would, other than Senate Democrats’ obsession with stereotyping individual Americans based on their ethnic backgrounds.

It’s important to understand exactly how bad a question this was. First, it has nothing at all to do with Quraishi’s ability to perform the job for which he has been nominated. Whether Quaraishi has never heard of Sharia, or whether he is a renowned Sharia scholar, should make no difference in his ability to oversee trials and apply U.S. law as a federal district judge. Second, the question itself put Quraishi in an impossible situation: whatever answer he gave would be bound to erode support from some segment of the population. (And indeed, some Muslim groups are apparently now rethinking their support of his nomination simply because of his honest answer.)

This was an entirely unforced error by Durbin, who half-apologized for the question in advance but still showed the utter lack of intelligence to ask it.

As best I can tell, Zahid Quraishi is a classic American success story. His nomination should rise or fall on his qualifications, not the political or cultural identity that others wish upon him.

Durbin to be top Democrat on Senate Judiciary Committee

In a secret ballot vote, Senate Democrats have approved a plan to let Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois lead the party on the Senate Judiciary Committee for the next Congress. The move was made possible after Senator Dianne Feinstein of California chose not to remain in that leadership position.

It’s not clear to me whether Durbin will be much of a change from Feinstein, whose recent tenure was marked both by moments of embarassing partisanship and sensible statesmanship. But Durbin cannot be worse (I hope) than his primary rival for the position, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. A valuable friend to the federal courts not too long ago, Whitehouse approached the lunatic fringe as of late, threatening the Supreme Court directly and ranting about dark money funding of judicial nominees. Let’s hope Durbin (or someone) can exert control and insist that Senators live up the standard of decorum and reasoned debate that the American people rightly expect of them.

Senate Democrats to boycott Barrett confirmation vote, replacing themselves with cardboard cutouts

Please tell me this is a joke:

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan to boycott Thursday’s committee vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination as a protest against Republican efforts to rush her through before the election.

The plan hasn’t been finalized yet, according to a Democratic aide, but Democrats are preparing to fill their empty seats with poster-sized photos of people who would be hurt by Barrett potentially casting a deciding vote against the Affordable Care Act. These would be the same pictures of people Democrats had on display during Barrett’s confirmation hearing last week.

Sadly, it appears to be real. Rather than upholding their Constitutional responsibility to vote a Supreme Court nominee, Senate Democrats are planning to replace themselves with cardboard cutouts for cheap political gain. In doing so, they will:

    • Send the message to undecided voters, just days before a major election, that they are not serious about their fundamental responsibilities;
    • Sow the ground for Republicans to pull a similar stunt (perhaps with cardboard cutouts of aborted fetuses) the next time the Democrats have a Senate majority and a Supreme Court nominee; and
    • Provide some free advertising for South Park and Bud Light.

My goodness. What have we become?

The cravenness of Democratic “Court reform” proposals

The Supreme Court is doing its job and winning public support. Some Democrats are despondent.

Last week, The Hill published an op-ed by by Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, lamenting the Supreme Court’s recent decisions on abortion rights, immigration, and workplace discrimination. Each of these cases resulted in what might be termed a liberal victory, in the sense that the outcome was in line with prevailing left-wing views in the United States. One might think of this as a cause for celebration among the Democratic establishment. But not for Mellman, who with a tinge of sadness concluded that “by refusing to inflame passions further, [Chief] Justice Roberts may stem the tide and accomplish the coveted goal of his GOP critics — preserving the Court’s current conservative majority.”

A second op-ed, also published in The Hill (on the same day, in fact!) took a more academic tone but made essentially the same point as Mellman. Law professors Kent Greenfield and Adam Winkler argued that the Chief Justice’s “moves to the middle will likely assist conservatives in the long run by dooming plans by Democrats the pack the Supreme Court with justices.” 

Both articles expose the long game the Democrats have been playing with the Supreme Court since the failed Merrick Garland nomination in 2016. It is a game to punish Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump by radically restructuring the Court itself. And it is a game that has been undermined by the Court’s own decency and independence.
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