Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Saturady, Sept. 7, 2002

Observers say that Bush is planning to send the nomination back to the Senate if the Republicans regain control in the November elections.

Still seething over the prior thumbs-down of the Democrat-controlled Senate, aided and abetted by such ultra leftist groups as the grossly misnamed People for the American Way and various abortion industry shills, gave another Bush nominee, Charles Pickering, Bush is determined to support his nominees. He has also refused to withdraw Pickering’s nomination. Both nominees were proposed to fill vacancies on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to allow their nominations to go to the full Senate for a vote.

Republicans on Friday continued to protest Owen's defeat and urged the president to keep the nomination alive, a course the White House is apparently electing to follow.

"Her nomination will remain in the Senate just as Pickering's has," said White House spokeswoman Ann Womack. "President Bush continues to believe that both should be seated on the 5th Circuit."

Bush and Republican senators described Owen as an extremely qualified jurist with the enthusiastic backing of the state and national bar associations while Democrats, called her a conservative extremist whose court rulings reflected her personal bias against abortions and for big business.

The Democrat’s savaging of Owen appalled some veteran legal observers. Wrote John Nowacki, Director of Legal Policy at the Free Congress Foundation, "Owen, by any objective measure, was a stellar nominee.” Nowacki noted that she got a "unanimous ‘well-qualified’ rating from the American Bar Association and had the respect and support of her colleagues, her state's Senators, and even a majority of the U.S. Senate.”

Moreover, Owen’s record as a judge "showed deference to the legislature, respect for the role of her court, and fidelity to U.S. Supreme Court precedent." Nowacki added, "Whether ruling on her state's parental notification statute, insurance claims, or any issue in between, she demonstrated a commitment to following the law.”

But, he wrote, "None of that mattered to the ten Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. They could not have cared less about her qualifications, temperament, or experience. They were not interested in how she fared under what they used to call the 'gold standard,' the ABA's judicial rating. They cared only about her politics.”

Nowacki recalled that "Early last year, those Democrats signaled that they would use an ideological litmus test on President Bush's nominees. They announced it in speeches in the Senate. They tried to justify it in a set of hearings last summer. And then they applied it, harshly, to Judge Charles Pickering last March and to Justice Priscilla Owen yesterday.”

President Bush is signaling the he won’t take this liberal undermining of his right to appoint qualified jurists to the federal bench lying down.

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Bush Administration

George W. Bush

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