Cornyn: Attack On Southwick Latest in Dangerous Game Played With Reputations of Honorable Public Servants

Press Release

Cornyn: Attack On Southwick Latest in Dangerous Game Played With Reputations of Honorable Public Servants

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday addressed DRI, a national organization of civil defense attorneys. He called for fair treatment and an end to the obstruction of Judge Leslie Southwick and other judicial nominees. Below is an excerpt of his remarks:

"I've had the chance now to participate in two Supreme Court confirmation hearings, but also a number of others for the circuit court and federal district courts.

"Let me just put it to you straight: I worry that the increasingly partisan and divisive battles over federal judicial nominations will discourage well-qualified men and women from seeking federal judicial office. This combined with the other topic I just mentioned—flagging compensation—I believe is a genuine threat.

"Back in 2003, not long after I began to serve in the Senate, I penned an article on this subject in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. It didn't take much time for me to reach this conclusion, as I wrote that the judicial confirmation process is badly broken and called then for a fresh start.

"Today as I stand before you, I'm saddened to report that the process is still broken. The simple fact is that too many games are being played at the expense of the reputations of honorable men and women who have been asked to serve this nation as members of the federal judiciary. To be sure, the Senate's role of advice and consent is inherently political. It requires the action and the vote of a political branch of government.

"But what is increasingly apparent is that these proceedings see the influence of inside-the-beltway interest groups that have decided that no attack is too frivolous, and no smear is too baseless to bring against a judicial nominee that they oppose. These groups don't hesitate to turn judicial nominees into caricatures, cherry picking from their judicial opinions if they have been judges or misrepresenting the facts of their legal experience.

"They also end up labeling them pro-this and anti-that, whatever the particular cause. Whatever happened to impartially judging the law and facts and letting the chips fall where they may? That's my ideal of a well-qualified nominee for judge. But consider the case of Judge Leslie Southwick of Mississippi, who has been nominated to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Judge Southwick served for almost 12 years to Mississippi Court of Appeals where he has participated in thousands of cases spanning the gamut of criminal and civil law. He is by all accounts a respected member of that court, and an honorable and decent man.

"Notably he took a leave from the bench to volunteer to serve his nation wearing the uniform of the United States military in Iraq. The American Bar Association unanimously found Judge Southwick well qualified for service on the Fifth Circuit, which as you know is the highest rating that the ABA gives. But, for whatever reason, this honorable public servant has been dragged through the mud and, in my opinion, slandered by his opponents. Judge Southwick has been called an "arch reactionary," a "neoconfederate," and "hostile to civil rights"—everything but the word racist—though that has been implied by the attacks. Judge Southwick's nomination is opposed by most of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"But I want to especially note my appreciation to Sen. Feinstein of California, who I think quite courageously declined to be strong-armed by interest groups whipping up manufactured hysteria. Announcing that she found zero evidence to support the charges against Judge Southwick, Sen. Feinstein joined others on the committee to advance the nomination to the Senate floor where it now pends. What was never answered during the Judiciary Committee's debate over Judge Southwick's nomination is why the same panel had just one year earlier unanimously approved him for a position on the U.S. District Court.

"I posed the question to my colleagues during the Judiciary Committee meeting. I said if there's a concern out there that Judge Southwick was not qualified because of some perceived racial issue, why in the world would the opposition deem him acceptable to be a federal district judge? Think about it for a second. The discretion afforded to a district court judge is so much greater than that of a member of an appeals court sitting in a collegial decision-making body. From the start of the trial from voir dire to juror strikes through evidentiary rulings and jury instructions, obviously a district court judge has enormous discretion. I trust that my colleagues would never vote for someone with a perceived problem of treating people unequally based upon their race. And would never confirm them for a life tenure in a role with such enormous discretion.

"In all fairness, there was no legitimate concern about Judge Southwick's character or record when the Judiciary Committee approved him last year to be a United States District Court Judge. This has become the latest incarnation of the dangerous game that's being played out with the reputations of honorable public servants.

"Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is the Republican Leader in the Senate, put it this way: "When do we stop for the sake of the institution, for the sake of the country, and for the sake of the party that may not currently occupy the White House?" "When," he asks, "do we stop it?"

"The Washington Post editorial page, along with respected legal affairs columnist Stuart Taylor from National Journal, both lamented the treatment afforded Judge Southwick—who I should mention has yet to be confirmed by the United States Senate. Stuart Taylor's column is appropriately titled "Short-Sighted on Judges." He writes: "The long-term cost to the country is that, bit by bit, almost imperceptibly, more and more of the people who would make the best judges, liberal and conservatives alike are less and less willing to put themselves through the ever-longer, ever-more harrowing gauntlet that the confirmation process has become."

"I share the story with you in order to impress upon you the kind of gratuitous and personal attacks that are occurring with greater frequency against judicial nominees. And what I fear is, as Stuart Taylor fears, is that if this happens under one President, who happens to be the leader of one political party, it's just as likely to happen when we change Presidents and they perhaps are the leader of the other major political party.

"So I would like to appeal to you once again in your individual capacities and as an organization, I hope that you will help as leaders of the Bar to continue to help us and encourage members of Congress to improve the tone and the rhetoric of the judicial confirmation process. When good men and women begin to decline the opportunity to serve on the federal bench out of disdain for this unnecessarily hostile process, the administration of justice in our nation will be the worse for it.

"I firmly believe that we should consider nominees on the basis of their qualifications and their temperament. We should examine their commitment to applying the law regardless of their personal beliefs."

Source