Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Debate Over Wallace's ABA Rating
Click on the above link to read an article in The Hill on the continuing controversy surrounding Michael Wallace's nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. His recent "unqualified" rating by the ABA has prompted supporters the nomination to question the bias of the ABA panel and its rating procedures. The article asserts:
"We need to find out if there was a personal agenda against Mr. Wallace by higher-ups at the ABA," a Senate Republican aide said last week. "If Mr. Wallace's rating was biased, that calls into question the whole rating system. Judicial activism is wrong, whether it is practiced by federal judges or the ABA ratings board."
The article references a National Review article by Kate O'Beirne in the June 5th edition, which stated:
"The ABA has its own recusal problems, with the result that Michael Wallace, a former Rehnquist clerk and aide to Sen. Trent Lott, faces what looks like an insurmountable problem in winning confirmation to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. On May 10, the ABA committee announced that Wallace had received a unanimous "not qualified." The Mississippi lawyer is a battle-scarred veteran of the wars over the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in the 1980s. Wallace's supporters call his efforts to end liberal activism and deliver services to the poor as a Reagan appointee on the corporation's board "heroic," but his liberal adversaries saw his reform efforts differently. Among his harshest critics 20 years ago were Michael Greco, the current president of the ABA, and Stephen Tober, who now chairs the ABA's committee on judges. Lawyers recall Greco's castigating Wallace at a convention in Hawaii in the 1980s; and a transcript from December 1987 reveals that when Tober, then president of the bar in New Hampshire, appeared before the LSC board chaired by Wallace, there was a heated personal exchange in which Tober accused Wallace of having a "hidden agenda." Given this contentious history and the ABA's insistence that those they judge avoid even the appearance of impropriety, Tober should have recused himself from pronouncing on his old adversary.
While Wallace's allies see old grudges at play, they have little hope that GOP senators will rally to defend a nominee saddled with a unanimous ABA thumbs-down after failing to rally behind nominees even the ABA has smiled upon. Republicans willing to abandon the president's nominees risk their voters' doing the same to them this November."
"We need to find out if there was a personal agenda against Mr. Wallace by higher-ups at the ABA," a Senate Republican aide said last week. "If Mr. Wallace's rating was biased, that calls into question the whole rating system. Judicial activism is wrong, whether it is practiced by federal judges or the ABA ratings board."
The article references a National Review article by Kate O'Beirne in the June 5th edition, which stated:
"The ABA has its own recusal problems, with the result that Michael Wallace, a former Rehnquist clerk and aide to Sen. Trent Lott, faces what looks like an insurmountable problem in winning confirmation to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. On May 10, the ABA committee announced that Wallace had received a unanimous "not qualified." The Mississippi lawyer is a battle-scarred veteran of the wars over the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in the 1980s. Wallace's supporters call his efforts to end liberal activism and deliver services to the poor as a Reagan appointee on the corporation's board "heroic," but his liberal adversaries saw his reform efforts differently. Among his harshest critics 20 years ago were Michael Greco, the current president of the ABA, and Stephen Tober, who now chairs the ABA's committee on judges. Lawyers recall Greco's castigating Wallace at a convention in Hawaii in the 1980s; and a transcript from December 1987 reveals that when Tober, then president of the bar in New Hampshire, appeared before the LSC board chaired by Wallace, there was a heated personal exchange in which Tober accused Wallace of having a "hidden agenda." Given this contentious history and the ABA's insistence that those they judge avoid even the appearance of impropriety, Tober should have recused himself from pronouncing on his old adversary.
While Wallace's allies see old grudges at play, they have little hope that GOP senators will rally to defend a nominee saddled with a unanimous ABA thumbs-down after failing to rally behind nominees even the ABA has smiled upon. Republicans willing to abandon the president's nominees risk their voters' doing the same to them this November."
# posted by Kim Loontjer @ 10:10 AM 
