The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

The CIVIL RIGHTS MONITOR is a quarterly publication that reports on civil rights issues pending before the three branches of government. The Monitor also provides a historical context within which to assess current civil rights issues. Back issues of the Monitor are available through this site. Browse or search the archives

Federal Judicial Nominations

President Bush ensured continuing battles over court nominations by resubmitting the names of five controversial nominees that had been returned to the White House unconfirmed when the Senate recessed in August. 

Because the Senate had failed to approve a unanimous consent agreement to continue consideration of the nominations, President Bush was required to resubmit the appointments if he wanted the Senate to reconsider them. The nominations are those of Terrence Boyle and William Haynes, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; Michael Wallace to the Fifth Circuit; and William Myers and N. Randy Smith, to the Ninth Circuit.

Three of the nominees - Boyle, Myers, and Smith - had been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. No action had yet been taken on Wallace or Haynes.

Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), had decried Boyle's party line vote out of committee, stating, "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."

Civil rights groups expressed concern that Boyle's twenty-year record on the district court showed that, if confirmed, he would move the Fourth Circuit, already an extremely conservative court on civil rights and Constitutional issues, further to the philosophical right.

A report by People for the American Way (PFAW) found that during his tenure as a federal district court judge, Boyle had issued rulings that would effectively overrule key federal laws and precedents that protect fundamental civil and constitutional rights. PFAW's president, Ralph Neas, called Boyle a "judicial disaster." Senators have also criticized Boyle for continuing to sit on cases where he had conflicts of interest.

 

LCCR urged the Judiciary Committee to reject Myers' nomination "in light of his record of hostility to the interests of Native Americans, his limited view of Congress's Commerce Clause power, with its implications for civil rights cases, and his views of property rights as 'fundamental' within our constitutional system." The Ninth Circuit presides over one hundred Indian tribes and millions of acres of public land; and has jurisdiction over important federal and tribal lands management issues.

The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) approved a resolution formally opposing Myers' nomination to the Ninth Circuit. According to NCAI, "former Solicitor of Interior Myers' disregard for federal law affecting Native sacred places compels [the] view that he is unable to fairly and impartially apply the law and thus should not be confirmed."

LCCR had opposed Department of Defense General Counsel Haynes' nomination to the Fourth Circuit on the basis of his record as a chief architect and defender of the Bush administration's policies regarding interrogation of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere, as well as those regarding the treatment of "enemy combatants" in the United States, which raised "serious doubts about his commitment to the most rudimentary principles of due process and human rights."

"Haynes' legacy at the Department of Defense is one of derelict oversight and unjust detention policies that not only undermine our country's commitment to human rights but also endanger the lives of Americans who might be captured by enemy forces," PFAW's Neas said.

The federal judicial nominations process has been marked by bitter partisan battles in recent years. In May of last year, a bipartisan group of senators reached a last-minute deal, averting a showdown in the Senate. The deal took the "nuclear option" - a proposal of a maneuver to end filibusters by majority vote - off the table, but allowed some of President Bush's most extreme judicial nominees - Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor - to move forward. The deal also caused Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R. Tenn., to pull back on several other controversial nominees, including those re-submitted by the president.