Smith Nomination to Move to Full Senate
Feature Story by Teresa Kraly - 6/6/2002
To the disappointment of the civil rights community, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of Judge D. Brooks Smith on May 23, 2002 to a federal appeals court in a vote of 12 to 7. The nomination will now move to the full Senate.Smith's nomination is the most controversial since that of U.S. District Judge Charles W. Pickering Sr. to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March. His nomination was rejected by the Committee. Three Democrats who voted against Pickering voted for Smith.
Many civil rights groups oppose Smith's nomination because of his violations of judicial ethics, including his membership in a discriminatory club, which continued for over a decade; his advocacy of a judicial philosophy that favors severe limitations on the federal government's power to protect the rights of individual Americans against discrimination and his record of decisions and reversals in cases concerning civil and individual rights.
Smith has been reversed 51 times by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, a larger number of reversals that any other judge who has been considered by this Committee during this Congress for an appellate court post. Smith has also been criticized for a 1993 speech in which he stated that the Violence Against Women Act, then pending before Congress, was unconstitutional.
Civil rights leaders Wade Henderson, Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Ralph Neas, President of People for the American Way, and Hilary Shelton, Director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP, attended the vote in a show of opposition to Smith's nomination.
Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron was not deterred by the vote: "Our efforts to defeat Judge Smith's confirmation are not over. We expect that groups dedicated to gender equality will be especially energized for a floor fight, but his record is one that should alarm anyone committed to equal justice for all, who believes in a capable, fair, and independent judiciary."
Neas also pledged to defeat the nomination in the full Senate. "We are going to continue to battle," he said.
