Boyle Rammed Through Committee With Partisan Push

Washington – Today Terrence Boyle, one of President Bush’s most controversial judicial nominees, was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in a party line vote. Wade Henderson, Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the nation’s oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition issued the following statement:

“Given the Republican’s lockstep effort to stack the courts with activist ideologues, I am not surprised Judge Boyle was forced through committee in a party line vote. Judge Boyle is simply not fit to serve on the Fourth Circuit and any Senator who has taken a good look at his record knows it.

Judge Boyle has a scandalous record of misinterpreting, misapplying or simply ignoring the law and legal precedent. He has been reversed by the very court he is now nominated to – the most conservative appellate court in the country – more than 150 times. And he’s been overturned by the Supreme Court. His record is not one of competency.

Judge Boyle has handed down some of the worst rulings on discrimination in recent memory. He has attacked laws protecting individual rights and liberties. He has repeatedly put “states’ rights” ahead of federally protected civil rights. He has assailed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and has a troubling history of denying voting rights to American citizens.

At the end of the day, Judge Boyle’s judicial record of hostility to the rights of Americans is exceeded only by the breadth of his proven record of incompetence as a federal district court judge. He does not deserve to be promoted to any US Circuit Court, much less one as important as the Fourth Circuit.

As his nomination goes to the floor, we urge Senators to give his record a hard look. We hope they put his record before their party loyalty.”