Supreme Court Confirmation Watch



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In Our Opinion

Why the Fight Over Sotomayor’s Confirmation Matters

Recently, Quin Hillyer, senior editorial writer at the Washington Times and senior editor of The American Spectator, joined CFIF’s Renee Giachino to discuss the Sotomayor nomination and why the fight over her confirmation matters…[Read more and listen to the interview here.]

156 Organizations and Activists, Including CFIF, Urge Opposition to Judge Sotomayor’s Confirmation to U.S. Supreme Court

In a letter sent to all 100 Members of the United States Senate, the Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) this week joined with 156 state and national organizations and activists, representing millions of Americans, to express opposition to the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to be the next associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court...[more]

Like President, Like Nominee: Obama and Sotomayor Render Language Increasingly Meaningless

While mesmerizing audiences with soothing teleprompted speeches and a hypnotic cadence, the disconnect between his words and his actions is already well-established. And now, in her first week of Senate confirmation testimony, Judge Sonia Sotomayor has demonstrated that the fruit doesn’t fall far from the proverbial tree...[more]

Sotomayor’s Got Some ’Splainin’ To Do

On its own, the New Haven firefighters case would be a blockbuster. It raises the most difficult and divisive of constitutional and statutory issues: Whether a city can refuse to promote and throw out the results of a promotion exam simply because white and Hispanic firefighters scored higher than their black colleagues...[more]

The Trial of Sonia Sotomayor

The members of the Obama Administration are the most politically cunning group to inhabit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since the Reagan years. Unlike the feckless Jimmy Carter or the erratic Bill Clinton, the current president and his team know how to make liberalism go down smooth...[more]

Judging Sotomayor

In a column on the confirmation battle over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor this week, Washington Post columnist David Broder cites back to the 1987 battle over Robert Bork: “The Bork battle was historic; a sharp ideological fight that saw interest groups on both sides mobilize as if it were a Presidential campaign...[more]

Justice Isn’t Blind for the President or His Supreme Court Nominee

The Memorial Day weekend was barely over when President Barack Obama announced his choice of who would get his Supreme Court nomination. While most Americans were just beginning their holiday-shortened work week, we learned that the “empathetic” nominee the President had been looking for was Judge Sonia Sotomayor, on the bench of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...[more]

RELEASE: CFIF Comments on Sotomayor Nomination to U.S. Supreme Court

After weeks of anticipation, President Barack Obama today nominated Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court. In response, Timothy Lee, CFIF’s Director of Legal and Public Affairs, issued the following statement calling for a careful review of Judge Sotomayor’s record and judicial temperament...[more]

Supreme Job Opening: Only Women and Minorities Wanted?

Indeed, virtually every news story and analysis about the President’s nominee emphasizes what seems to be an inevitable fact about whomever may get the nomination -- the person won’t be white and, almost as certainly, won’t be male...[more]

The Supreme Retirement Game Begins

With crises at home (the economy) and abroad (pick your favorite, the War on Terror, the Middle East Conflict, etc.), no one has been paying much attention to the highest court in the land. Instead, for more than a year now, the focus for the media, the American people and even the world has been the two political branches of our federal government...[more]

Like Father, Like Son: A Legal Legacy Lost?

Isn't it funny how history — even recent history — repeats itself in spite of the oft-cited aphorism that it's important to learn from history so we don't repeat it.  More realistically, famed lawyer Clarence Darrow once noted, "History repeats itself; that's one of the things wrong with history."  And, so it is with the Presidents Bush, father and son...[more]

Is the Supreme Court Moving in a More Conservative Direction?

Recently, ABC News Correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg, author of  "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for the Control of the United States Supreme Court," joined CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino to discuss the book, the high court's newest members and the controversial decisions still to be decided this term. ... [Read more and listen to the interview here.]

Looming Supreme Court Vacancies: Reason Enough to Vote November 7

Five - that is how many U.S. Supreme Court Justices will reach age 70 or older between this November 7 and the next nationwide election in November 2008...[more]

The Honorable Judge Pickering talks about the
Politics of Judicial Confirmation and the Culture War

According to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's website, as of March 17, 2006, the nomination of 33 judges for federal circuit and district court positions remain pending in either committee or on the floor.  A total of 45 vacancies are reported, with 18 listed as judicial emergencies...[more]

The Judges War Continues, and It Must

Those of us who care about the proper role of judges and their correct interpretation of the Constitution must not get complacent after the tremendous successes we have witnessed over the past five months...[more]

A Farewell to Justice O'Connor

There wasn't enough room on the front pages of many -- dare we say most -- newspapers Wednesday for all the news, including a proper acknowledgment of and farewell to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.  Dwarfed by President George W. Bush's State of the Union address...[more]

Senator Biden's Needle in a Haystack

"The system's kind of broken," the Senator said. "[We should] just go to the Senate floor and debate the nominee's statements, instead of this game."...[more]

Lessons Learned from Alito's Confirmation Hearings

Our newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, can finally exhale.  Much to the chagrin of many Democrats and their cronies, Judge Samuel Alito was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 31 by a 58 to 48 vote to retiring Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor...[more]

Alito Hysteria at the New York Times

Today, thus, we come to ponder editorials, specifically two lead editorials this week (January 23 and January 26), both foaming-at-the-mouth hysterical in opposition to the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.  Ralph Neas and Nan Aron don't go that far over the edge...[more]

Justice Delayed:  The Unconscionable Treatment of Judge Alito

It's now common knowledge that Judge Alito will ultimately be approved in committee by a 10-8 party-line vote.  Absent what Democrats themselves consider to be an unlikely ability to dig up a silver bullet, he will be confirmed by the full Senate...[more]

Grave Concerns:  The Inquisition of Samuel Alito

They are gravely concerned that he might be a racist.  They are gravely concerned that he might be a crook.  They are gravely concerned that he might be for big guys over little guys.  That he might be against immigrants, women.  That he might have a fetish for strip-searching 10-year-old girls...[more]

Theater of the Absurd

But that hasn't prevented the Democrats from insisting upon hour after hour of "questions," during which the presence of Judge Samuel Alito has been rarely necessary other than to provide the Democrats with the opportunity to make their unfounded accusations in person...[more]

Judge Alito Makes Opening Statement Before Senate Judiciary Committee

This was a lawyer who had never argued a case before the court before. And when the argument began, one of the justices said, "How did you get here?," meaning how had his case worked its way up through the court system. But the lawyer was rather nervous and he took the question literally and he said -- and this was some years ago -- he said, "I came here on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad."...[more]

What's Right Is Wrong, What's Left Is Right

Not that anyone needed more evidence that the so-called "mainstream media" suffers from a liberal bias.  But if we did, we would only have to look so far as the recent coverage of President George W. Bush's choice to be the next justice of the Supreme Court of the United States...[more]

The Specter of Switching Sides

The infamous history reaches all the way back to 1987, which is a long time when you're talking about a sitting United States Senator.  He is the Senior Senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and he has played a primary role in the Senate's "advice and consent" on every nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States for nearly a quarter century...[more]

Our Consequential Constitution?

With vacancies on the Supreme Court opening up for the first time in more than a decade...[more]

Provably Qualified: President Bush's Supreme Court Short List

The professors did not have high expectations for the five judges who were frequently mentioned as President Bush's "short listers" for seats on the Supreme Court.  In fact, the law professors bluntly stated their "expectation ... that the Bush Five" — Judges Samuel Alito, Emilio Garza, Edith Jones, J. Michael Luttig and J. Harvie Wilkinson —"would fare abysmally in the tournament (given [the law professors'] perception of ideological focus of the current administration)..."[more]

Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., Answers Judiciary Committee Questionnaire

This week, Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., President Bush's nominee to be the next Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, filed his written answers to the questionnaire submitted to him by the Senate Judiciary Committee...[more]

Slanted Alito Scholarship from a Prejudiced Professor

It's about time the U.S. Senate or the mainstream media vetted those publicly attacking Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito as thoroughly as the Judge himself...[more]

Gunning for Limited Government

Nearly a decade ago, Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., asked whether “the Commerce Clause still imposes some meaningful limits on congressional power”...[more]

How to Demonize a Judge in Twelve Steps

David Nieporent, who authors the blog jumping to conclusions, recently posted a revealing tongue-in-cheek analysis that exposes how liberal interests attack constitutionalist judicial nominees....[more]

CFIF Blasts AP Report on Possible Catholic High Court Majority

The Center for Individual Freedom today sharply criticized a November 2 Associated Press story which seems to try and stir fears of Catholic domination of the Supreme Court...[more]

Remarks of Judge Samuel Alito on His Nomination to the Supreme Court

"Thank you very much, Mr. President. I am deeply honored to be nominated to serve on the Supreme Court."...[more]

President Bush Announces the Nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court

"Good morning. I'm pleased to announce my nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States."...[more]

CFIF Praises Alito’s Nomination to the Supreme Court

"Judge Alito is a supremely qualified, mainstream conservative choice... Judge Alito has a first rate intellect, legal credentials, and judicial experience.”...[more]

Miers Nomination Withdrawn

President George W. Bush accepted a request from Harriet Miers to withdraw her nomination to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court...[more]

President Bush's Statement on the Miers Withdrawal

"Today, I have reluctantly accepted Harriet Miers’ decision to withdraw her nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States."...[more] 

Harriet Miers' Letter to President Bush Requesting that Her Nomination be Withdrawn (.pdf)

"I write to withdraw as a nominee to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States."...[more]

Archived Profile of Harriet Miers

President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States...[more]

More of an Insider’s Look Behind the Curtain: Continued Interview with a Former U.S. Supreme Court Clerk

This is the second of a two-part interview with Erik Jaffe, a constitutional law expert and appellate attorney who clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas...[more]

Archived Profile of Chief Justice John Roberts

John G. Roberts, Jr. was nominated on September 5, 2005 by President George W. Bush to be Chief Justice of the United States...[more]

One Down, One to Go

Midday Thursday, the U.S. Senate confirmed John Roberts to be the 17th Chief Justice of the United States....[more]

CFIF Applauds Roberts’ Confirmation

The U.S. Senate today confirmed John Roberts as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States...[more]

Democrat Support for Roberts Proves that Being Conservative Is No Impediment to Confirmation

"It’s refreshing to see that some Democrats are now willing to set partisan politics aside and vote ‘yes’ on Judge Roberts’ confirmation"...[more] 

Historical Imbalance

How quickly the Democrats forget their own history....[more]

Editorial Pages on the Roberts Confirmation

The Senate Judiciary Committee this week concluded its hearings on the confirmation of Judge John G. Roberts, Jr., to be the next Chief Justice of the United States...[more]

Judge Roberts' Opening Statement

Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules; they apply them...But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire...[more]

CFIF: Judge Roberts ‘Hits Home Run’

Judge Roberts hit a home run today with his remarks. His comments were obviously from the heart and his presentation was phenomenal...[more]

Senator Coburn's Opening Statement

America is an idea; it's not competing ideologies. It's an idea that has proven tremendously successful and, when we reduce it to that of competing ideologies, we make it less than what it is...[more]

CFIF: Left's Attempt to Use Hurricane Katrina Against Roberts is 'Despicable,' 'Pathetic'

According to the Boston Globe, several prominent Democrats and liberal leaders are attempting to use the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina as a tool to express their doubts about Judge John Roberts...[more]

Conservative Groups Criticize Left's Plans to Use Katrina to Attack Roberts

According to statements published in the Boston Globe, several prominent Senate Democrats have announced plans to exploit the destructive aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to launch fresh attacks on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts...[more]

Remembering Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist

With the passing of William H. Rehnquist, the 16th Chief Justice of the United States, America lost a universally respected jurist and a supremely dedicated public servant....[more]

A Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing Is Coming to Town

You’d think Christmas was coming early to our nation’s capital given what several Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have been doing...[more]

John Roberts and the Third Amendment: Another Liberal Nightmare (Satire)

Liberal opponents of federal appeals court Judge John Roberts’ ascendancy to the U.S. Supreme Court, thus far unable to tarnish his reputation, face new hurdles as the U.S. Senate must now confirm him as Chief Justice...[more]

Liberal Groups Jerk the Leash, Senate Democrats Respond with Attacks

Following a report in the Washington Post which indicated that Democratic Senators were generally not inclined to wage partisan warfare over Judge John Roberts’ confirmation, liberal groups like People for the American Way and the Alliance for Justice reacted angrily...[more]

The Rutledge Precedent Debunked

The Left has spent the last four years laying the groundwork for liberal Senators like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin to undertake extensive and detailed questioning of judicial nominees concerning their positions on specific issues...[more]

Confirmation Process Shouldn't Be a Political Quest for Legal Outcomes

In the abstract, federal judges have a relatively simple sounding mission: administer our justice system by interpreting and applying the law...[more]

TAKE ACTION NOW!!

Senate Democrats and their Hollywood-funded special interest friends are going to use the entire August recess to smear Judge Roberts....[COUNTER THIS EFFORTS AND SUPPORT JUDGE ROBERTS NOW!]

Judge Roberts' Judiciary Committee Questionnaire

Supreme Court nominee Judge John Roberts recently filed his responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questionnaire...[more]

Send a letter of support for Judge Roberts'
Supreme Court nomination to the Senate Judiciary Committee

The White House and Senate leaders have repeatedly told CFIF that the most critical thing organizations and individuals can do to help with Judge Roberts’ nomination is to send letter of support...[more]

Dellinger’s Weather Vane Imitation

In a column in the Washington Post, former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger does his best impression of a weather vane, swinging at the direction of the hot air blowing from liberal interest groups...[more]

The Toad and Judge Roberts

By Alexander Schwab: A California toad is creating quite a stir in Judge John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States. And no, it’s not Barbara Boxer...[more]

Roberts’ Nomination Leaves Liberals Scratching Their Heads

To a live primetime television audience Tuesday night, President George W. Bush announced his long-anticipated choice to serve as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States...[more]

Judge John Roberts: Legal Top Gun

In general, Americans aspire to have the best of everything ― the best food, the best sports, the best military ― and the best Supreme Court...[more]

2003 Judiciary Committee Vote on Roberts

When the U.S. Senate was considering Judge John Roberts’ confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended his confirmation by a vote of 16-3...[more]

Bipartisan Group of Lawyers Backs Roberts

As the Senate considered John Roberts' nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a bi-partisan group of more than 150 lawyers announced their strong support for his confirmation...[more]

CFIF Praises Judge Roberts’ Nomination to the Supreme Court

President Bush today nominated Judge John Roberts to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. In response, Jeff Mazzella, President of the Center for Individual Freedom, made the following statement...[more]

President Bush Introduces Supreme Court Nominee Roberts

On July 19, 2005, President Bush nominated Judge John G. Roberts to be Associated Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Here is the full text of the President's remarks...[more]

Fairness Isn’t Part of the Obstructionist Playbook

As President Bush deliberates on whom to nominate to fill the first Supreme Court vacancy in more than a decade, it’s worth contemplating the other side of the confirmation equation: the U.S. Senate...[more]

The Supremacy of Five

Each summer America learns about the supremacy of five...[more]

The President Consults with Liberal Senators
(a Double Super Secret Transcript)

President Bush has been consulting with liberal Senators about his Supreme Court nominee, and CFIF has the transcript...[more]

Why the Supreme Court Should Matter to You…
And It’s Not for the Reasons that You Think

Last week’s announcement that Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is retiring created the first Supreme Court vacancy in more than 11 years and set off a high-stakes, high-profile battle over who will replace her...[more]

CFIF Urges New Supreme Court Justice to Protect Constitution

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced today that she would retire after more than 20 years on the Supreme Court. In response, Jeff Mazzella, President of the Center for Individual Freedom, made the following statement...[more]



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