John McCain and Bad Bush Judges
The Supreme Court
Senator McCain has promised America that if he’s President, we’ll have more Supreme Court Justices like John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Here’s just some of the damage that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito have already done:
- voted to severely limit the ability of women who were unlawfully denied equal pay for equal work, and other victims of wage discrimination under Title VII, to obtain back pay (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.)
- voted to strike down the voluntary integration plans of two public school districts, undermining the ability of school boards to promote racial diversity in their schools (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1)
- voted to limit the ability of federal taxpayers to challenge government expenditures that violate the Establishment Clause, undermining the separation of church and state (Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation)
- voted to uphold the federal ban on so-called “partial birth” abortions, despite the absence of an exception in the law to protect a woman’s health (Gonzales v. Carhart)
- voted to deny free speech protections to government employee internal whistleblowers (Garcetti v. Ceballos)
- voted to undermine the Endangered Species Act (National Association of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife)
And, in another important environmental case, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito would have upheld the EPA’s refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles, a view rejected by five members of the Court (Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. EPA).
The Federal Appeals Courts
Senator McCain has voted to confirm every one of President Bush’s controversial appellate court nominees, including the most right-wing, ideological extremists. Among those who Senator McCain has helped put on the Circuit Courts for life are William Pryor, Priscilla Owen, and Janice Rogers Brown, all of whose disturbing records were well-known and documented when McCain voted to confirm them.
Pryor, in fact, was the subject of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial entitled “Right-Wing Zealot is Unfit to Judge” (May 6, 2003). The same paper described Brown’s judicial views as “far out of the mainstream of accepted legal principles” ("Judicial Pick Not Fit for U.S. Court," Oct. 29, 2003). And former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, then a colleague of Owen’s on the Texas Supreme Court, repeatedly wrote or joined criticism of Owen’s aggressive right-wing judicial activism.
Like Roberts and Alito, in just a few short years on the bench, these judges are already damaging or trying to damage Americans’ rights. For example:
- William Pryor (11th Cir.): like Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, voted to limit the ability of women unlawfully denied equal pay for equal work, and other victims of wage discrimination under Title VII, to obtain back pay (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.); also was the deciding vote not to re-hear (and thus let stand) a ruling upholding an Anita Bryant-era Florida law prohibiting gay men and lesbians from adopting children, even when they have served as foster parents for those children (Lofton v. Secretary of the Dept. of Children and Family Services)
- Priscilla Owen (5th Cir.): voted to overturn a $3.5 million jury verdict in favor of a woman who was the victim of medical malpractice, on the ground that she should have known sooner that the drug doctors prescribed for her during her pregnancy could have caused her serious heart and lung problems even though her doctors themselves claimed that the drug did nothing to cause her injuries. In dissent, Judge Patrick Higginbotham (a Reagan appointee) accused Owen of trying to impose “tort reform by decree, not ballot.” (Huss v. Gayden)
- Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Cir.): tried to rewrite legal protection for employees against sexual harassment under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, explicitly contradicting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and several previous court decisions (Lutkewitte v. Gonzales); also declined to re-hear (and thus let stand) a ruling that the EPA had properly refused to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles; in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court later reversed that ruling (Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. EPA). (As noted above, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito were among the dissenters siding with the EPA.)