WEBCommentary Contributor

Author: Michael J. Gaynor
Date:  September 19, 2006

Topic category:  Other/General

Don't Forget the Judges


What Wendy E. Long, general counsel of The Judicial Confirmation Network (www.judicialnetwork.com), wrote in a Washington Times op-ed published on April 15, 2005 was true then and remains true now.

What Wendy E. Long, general counsel of The Judicial Confirmation Network  (www.judicialnetwork.com), wrote in a Washington Times op-ed published on April 15, 2005 was true then and remains true now:

" A liberal minority needs federal judges to advance their agenda — allowing child pornography as free speech, mandating same-sex marriage, removing 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance, banning school prayer and preventing the death penalty for murderers and terrorists — because they can't win these issues at the ballot box. Mr. Bush promised to nominate judges who will apply the law as written and stay out of politics.... 

"The American people want senators to do the job our tax dollars pay them to do. Senators who fail to do their jobs — either by failing to show up for their committee meetings, by voting against restoring the Senate tradition of up-or-down votes for judges, or by halting the work of the federal government — might find themselves out of work when they really need the consent of the governed: at their next election."

This year judicial activists did even more damage to America.  The damage  done by judicial activists includes two more deplorable decision: (1) a 5-3 United States Supreme Court decision extending Geneva Conventions protection to terrorists (history, common sense and respect for judicial precedent notwithstanding) and (2) a federal district decision declaring the critical terrorist surveillance program revealed by The New York Times to be both unauthorized and unconstitutional even if authorized by Congress.

The task of repopulating the federal courts with strict constructionists is vital and ongoing and President Bush needs as many Senators as possible to support his judicial nominees and give them the up-or-down vote to which nominees are entitled, regardless of the political party of the President doing the nominating.

A brief WDC media news editorial not only lamented Republican failure to capitalize on the federal judges issue (it's the reason former Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle lost his race for re-election in 2004), but prodded powerfully by pointing out that the federal judges issue IS "a security matter"!

"In 2002, when the Democrats were obstructing the nominations of federal judges, a number of GOP candidates grabbed that issue and promised speedy confirmations. The issue helped them gain victory at the polls.

"But in 2006, when another midterm election is forthcoming, it seems that issue has been frittered away by the Republicans.

"Pending nominees to the federal bench include Terrence Boyle and William Haynes (nominated to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.), William Myers and Norman Randy Smith (9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco) and Michael Wallace (5th Circuit in New Orleans).

"Does the GOP need a reminder that there is a large majority of voters who do not like liberal activist judges, and agree with the philosophy of appointing conservative jurists to the bench?

"Neither Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter nor Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has been adamant in pushing the nominees forward. Sen. Frist has said he wants to focus on security matters in the remaining days of the Congress.

"Yet appointing sensible judges to the federal bench is a security matter. Do you trust national security to be in the hands of a John Roberts or Samuel Alito or in the hands of an Anna Diggs Taylor, who recently ruled the needed electronic surveillance program is unconstitutional?

"This is an issue Republicans should emphasize. They have common sense, and a majority of Americans, on their side."

ABSOLUTELY!

Remember the way Senate Democrats behaved during the confirmation process for now United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.?

If President Bush has the opportunity to appoint a replacement for Justice Stevens, or Justice Ginsburg, or Justice Breyer, or Justice Souter, or Justice Kennedy, he needs a Republican-controlled Senate and enough voters to end a filibuster in order to put a replacement who will interpret the law and the Constitution – not make up the law and deprive "We the people" of the right to govern ourselves, as judicial activists habitually do, even though a judge or a justice should not use the power of the court to impose his or her personal or political agenda on the people.

Of course, there are plenty of federal appellate and district court judgeships to fill with suitable people and the voters should be remind to reject instead of to reward Democrat obstructionism.

On September 13, 2006, Gary A. Marx, executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network, called upon United States Senators to "do the job their home state citizens elected them to do, and that all of us are paying them to do: step up and vote" on President Bush's nominees to the federal bench.

"This is important for Senators on the Judiciary Committee," Mr. Marx said, "as the Committee meets tomorrow to vote on four judicial nominees that President Bush re-nominated after Senators left them on the table last time around: Boyle, Haynes, Myers, and Smith. It's also important for all 100 Senators to give these nominees votes on the Senate floor."

Mr. Marx stressed that "the issue of judges has proven to be enormously important to Americans across the country one that they certainly remember when they perform their own civic duty in voting. The President has been steadfast in putting forth top quality judges with stellar credentials who will exercise restraint and apply the law fairly and evenhandedly, instead of the kind of liberal judicial activists the Democrats want to fill the federal bench. Just think what the Supreme Court would look like right now if, instead of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, these seats had been filled by the likes of Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton."

"The four judicial nominees who will be before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning have outstanding records of public service and legal credentials. But Democrats and their ACLU activist cronies will stop at nothing to distort and politicize the records of the nominees and the judicial nominations issue in general. For example, they are attacking the President's 4th Circuit nominee, Jim Haynes, because he has served our nation as the general counsel of the Defense Department during the war on terror. In fact, when Americans reflect on it, they will appreciate that one reason we have been kept safe from further terrorist attack since September 11, 2001 is because Jim Haynes has done his job well as the Pentagon's lawyer. This stands in stark contrast to liberal activist judges who disregard the law as written in order to impose the preferred policies of the ACLU and liberal special interest groups."

The Thursday morning meeting did not take place: no quorum.  A Democrat boycott guaranteed that.

If the Republicans lose the ability to confirm strict constructionists nominated by President Bush by failing to emphasize that the judges issue is a national security issue during the War on Terror, they will be a great shame and they will have themselves to blame.

Michael J. Gaynor


Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.


Copyright © 2006 by Michael J. Gaynor
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