Topic category:  Other/General

Two National Review Bench Memos posted after the election results show that the election of Obama instead of McCain did NOT reflect a national lurch to the left, but a hope that the next president will govern from the center.

Ed Whelan, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, celebrated the passage of Proposition 8 in California, a message to Obama that even in very liberal California, where Obama won overwhelmingly, traditional values still prevail.

Mr. Whelan:

"Bench Memos readers are probably already aware of this, but in case anyone has missed it, I’ll point out the good news that California voters passed Proposition 8, which enshrines traditional marriage in the state constitution and overrides the state supreme court’s terrible decision from last May that concocted a right to same-sex marriage. With a small number of votes still to count, the tally here as I write this is 52.5% yes, 47.5% no.

"It’s good to see that California chief justice Ronald George and his fellow miscreants—associate justices Joyce L. Kennard, Carlos R. Moreno, and Kathryn Mickle Werdegar—have been thwarted in their lawless activism."

Amen!

Wendy Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, found state court results to be the election's "silver lining."

Mrs. Long:

"Anyone looking for a silver lining in this election cycle should consider the ringing endorsement for the principle of judicial restraint among the millions of voters who actually cast a ballot.

"In Ohio, where a Democratic tide favored judges with activist tendencies, the restrained incumbent Justices O'Connor and Stratton won landslide victories.

"In Louisiana, despite an extremely well funded trial lawyer effort, Judge Greg Guidry beat back Judge Jimmy Kuhn in a remarkable 59-41% win to flip Lousiana's supreme court in the direction of restraint.

"In Texas all three Supreme Court incumbents were re-elected despite massive late expenditures by the trial bar.

"In Alabama, where one of the nation's preeminent Supreme Court judges, Harold See, retired, it looks like Judge Greg Shaw will narrowly defeat trial attorney favorite Judge Deborah Paseur.

"In Mississippi, restrained Justice Ann Lamar and restrained Judge Randy Pierce both won, while incumbent Jim Smith lost to the popular former prosecutor Jim Kitchens.

"The worst news of the night was from Michigan. Chief Justice Cliff Taylor could not withstand a barrage of extremely dishonest last minute ads by the Democratic Party that earlier this year tried to take over the state through the much talked about Reform Michigan Government Now proposal. The 16-point Obama landslide helped Judge Diana Hathaway put the final nail in Taylor's bid for re-election.

"Overall, it was a strong night for state courts, confirming what internal polling has long shown: Americans strongly prefer judges who practice judicial restraint and resist the temptation to rule based on 'empathy' or other passions — that is, to legislate from the bench.

"Last night's election results must not be misinterpreted as a mandate for judicial activism in our courts. The principles of constitutionally limited government have been a hallmark of our system since our Founding. These results prove that those principles, far from being abandoned, enjoy broad support among the American people."

Unfortunately, the United States Supreme Court's judicial activists will have ample opportunity to retire and thereby permit Obama to replace them with much younger judicial activists.

Obama is virtually certain to put judicial activists on the United States Supreme Court if the opportunity is presented and to put many of them federal appellate and district court benches, UNLESS the people insist that he govern as a moderate instead of the most liberal United States Senator and a person who voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts and even voted to deny Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. an up-or-down vote of his nomination to the United States Supreme Court.

Having been elected by posing as moderate in the general election after running to the left of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination, will Obama govern as a Far Leftist or a centrist?

It's up to the people to let the President Elect know what they want, because he wants to be re-elected.

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.