Despite Strong Opposition, Rogers Brown Confirmed by Senate
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 6/9/2005
The Senate has confirmed (56 to 43) controversial judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.Rogers Brown had been previously rejected by the Senate, but a last minute bipartisan deal rejecting the so-called "nuclear option" last month allowed her nomination to move forward.
Rogers Brown's confirmation had been opposed by nearly 150 national and state organizations, including the NAACP, Sierra Club and NOW.
Opponents had noted that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit plays a critical role in the federal judicial system because it most closely oversees the action of federal agencies. Yet Brown has exhibited a disdain for government, saying, "Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies."
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) called Rogers Brown unfit to serve on the D.C. Circuit because of her "extreme positions, her tendency toward ideologically-driven judicial activism, and her disregard for settled law," citing as one example a case where Rogers Brown "went so far as to suggest that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination, violates the First Amendment and is therefore unconstitutional."
Reacting to the confirmation, LCCR Executive Director Wade Henderson said, "Republicans used one of the oldest tricks in the book to ram through Janice Rogers Brown's confirmation. They exploited her race and gender to obscure her shameful record. Rogers Brown's judicial activism is extraordinary."
Under the terms of the bipartisan compromise deal that was struck to avoid the nuclear option, Rogers Brown received an "up or down" vote, meaning it took only 51 votes to confirm her to a lifetime position on the federal bench.
