Comments on: “Ask the Author” with Jan Crawford Greenburg: Part 1 http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/ask-the-author-with-jan-crawford-greenburg-part-1/ The Supreme Court of the United States blog Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:56:34 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Hans Bader http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/ask-the-author-with-jan-crawford-greenburg-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-10935 Hans Bader Wed, 07 Feb 2007 20:15:49 +0000 http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/uncategorized/ask-the-author-with-jan-crawford-greenburg-part-1/#comment-10935 If the judge-vetters in the Bush Administration had bothered to read Justice Souter's opinions on the New Hampshire Supreme Court, they might not have figured out that he was a liberal, but they certainly would have seen that he was not conservative. His rulings on the New Hampshire Supreme Court didn't have a conservative tinge (or, for that matter, a strongly liberal tinge, either). Why, then, did they think he was a conservative? The story has been told (although it is but hearsay) that Souter possessed what appeared to be a Federalist Society coffee mug at a meeting with a Bush judge picker, leading her to erroneously believe that he was a conservative (even though the Federalist Society supposedly did not arrange for the production of such coffee mugs at that time). The story has also been told that Edith Jones, who is a consistently-conservative judge, was blocked from being appointed because of a truly obscure issue that would bore most people to death: because an official in the Bush I Administration disliked Jones' views about the Administrative Procedure Act. No lawyer can know everything about a judge's record. And there aren't very many conservative lawyers (even lawyers who are Republicans are often socially-liberal Republicans who are Republican only because of economic issues that don't often come before the judiciary). As a result, there were fairly few people with conservative views who would have been in a position (absent further research) to really gauge whether Souter's record, in its entirety, was actually conservative. And none of those people were apparently in the White House (and the judge-vetters in the White House apparently did not, or could not, rectify their lack of knowledge by spending the necessary hours reading Souter's opinions and public statements to gauge his judicial philosophy). If the judge-vetters in the Bush Administration had bothered to read Justice Souter’s opinions on the New Hampshire Supreme Court, they might not have figured out that he was a liberal, but they certainly would have seen that he was not conservative.

His rulings on the New Hampshire Supreme Court didn’t have a conservative tinge (or, for that matter, a strongly liberal tinge, either).

Why, then, did they think he was a conservative?

The story has been told (although it is but hearsay) that Souter possessed what appeared to be a Federalist Society coffee mug at a meeting with a Bush judge picker, leading her to erroneously believe that he was a conservative (even though the Federalist Society supposedly did not arrange for the production of such coffee mugs at that time).

The story has also been told that Edith Jones, who is a consistently-conservative judge, was blocked from being appointed because of a truly obscure issue that would bore most people to death: because an official in the Bush I Administration disliked Jones’ views about the Administrative Procedure Act.

No lawyer can know everything about a judge’s record. And there aren’t very many conservative lawyers (even lawyers who are Republicans are often socially-liberal Republicans who are Republican only because of economic issues that don’t often come before the judiciary).

As a result, there were fairly few people with conservative views who would have been in a position (absent further research) to really gauge whether Souter’s record, in its entirety, was actually conservative.

And none of those people were apparently in the White House (and the judge-vetters in the White House apparently did not, or could not, rectify their lack of knowledge by spending the necessary hours reading Souter’s opinions and public statements to gauge his judicial philosophy).

]]> By: Simon Dodd http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/ask-the-author-with-jan-crawford-greenburg-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-10934 Simon Dodd Wed, 07 Feb 2007 19:26:24 +0000 http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/uncategorized/ask-the-author-with-jan-crawford-greenburg-part-1/#comment-10934 I may be perhaps blowing a surprise of the book here, although it's been widely trailed on other blogs, but it was of interest to me that one of the "group of attorneys in the Justice Department [who] opposed Starr’s nomination because they believed he wasn’t conservative enough" - indeed, one of the three people that the book suggests are most directly-responsible for torpedoing Starr's nomination - was the very man Jan discussed in answering the previous question: Mr. Vanguard of the Conservative Legal Movement himself, Michael Luttig. I may be perhaps blowing a surprise of the book here, although it’s been widely trailed on other blogs, but it was of interest to me that one of the “group of attorneys in the Justice Department [who] opposed Starr’s nomination because they believed he wasn’t conservative enough” – indeed, one of the three people that the book suggests are most directly-responsible for torpedoing Starr’s nomination – was the very man Jan discussed in answering the previous question: Mr. Vanguard of the Conservative Legal Movement himself, Michael Luttig.

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