Bush's KKK approved judicial nominee

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:46 AM on May 31, 2007.

This post, written by Howie Klein, originally appeared on Down With Tyranny!

Bush has gotten some of the worst judges ever nominated for anything confimed and we'll be suffering the consequences for years to come, not just on the Supreme Court but throughout the judicial system. In terms of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, though, Bush's nominees have been so gratuitously unqualified and extremist that they have been unable to win confirmation. Even Republicans were choking on a radical right ideologue like Charles Pickering and when the Bush Regime moved to replace that dismal nomination with the even more bigoted Michael Wallace that flopped too. And it isn't getting any better. The latest nightrider nightmare that Bush is trying to foist on us is former Mississippi Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick, a racist amd bigoted asshole every bit as unacceptable to normal Americans as Pickering and Wallace.

A couple weeks ago Judith Schaeffer sent up a warning flare at Huff Po, alerting the public to Southwick's homophobia and racism-- and the fact that he seems proud of both traits. Next week the Senate Judiciary Committee-- rushed into this by Miss McConnell's threats to tie up the Senate if some Bush appointees don't get confirmed fast-- takes up the case of Leslie Southwick and will decide whether or not to send this controversial nomination on to the full Senate, where he will be able to count on a handful of reactionary Democrats (and a reactionary ex-Democrat) to support Bush's goal of stuffing the courts full of pro-corporate, anti-civil rights judicial activists.

We can't let Democrats, now ostensibly in the majority, cave in and let us down on this one, the way they did on Alito and Roberts. As Ralph Neas of People For the American Way said today "regrettably, Southwick also has a troubling record and appears to be cut from the same cloth as [Pickering and Wallace]... Just like Pickering and Wallace before him, Southwick appears ready and willing to turn back the clock on fifty years of social justice progress in our nation. Southwick had an opportunity at his recent hearing to demonstrate a commitment to Americans' individual rights and freedoms, but he proved that he still doesn't get it. The Senate Judiciary Committee must reject Southwick's confirmation."

Two of the cases that best illustrate the danger of confirming a character like Southwick are these examples from the Mississippi Court of Appeals:

• In 1998, while on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, Southwick joined a ruling in an employment case that upheld the reinstatement, without any punishment whatsoever, of a white state employee who was fired for calling an African American co-worker a "good ole nigger." The court's decision effectively ratified a hearing officer's opinion that the slur was only "somewhat derogatory" and "was in effect calling the individual a 'teacher's pet.'" The Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously reversed the decision.

• In 2001, Southwick joined a ruling that upheld a chancellor's decision to take an eight-year-old girl away from her mother and award custody to the father, who had never married the mother, largely because the mother was living with another woman in a "lesbian home." Southwick went even further by joining a gratuitously anti-gay concurrence which extolled Mississippi's right under "the principles of Federalism" to treat "homosexual persons" as second-class citizens. The concurrence suggested that sexual orientation is a choice and stated that an adult is not "relieved of the consequences of his or her choice" -- e.g., losing custody of one's child.

The Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are all partisan hacks and can all be depended on to support Southwick even if he shows up at the hearings in a white sheet and pillowcase over his head. No need to waste any time contacting the likes of Tom Coburn, Sam Brownback, Jon Kyl, Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Arlen Specter-- or any of the guys who use the same sheet and pillow case tailor as Southwick, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, and Jeff Sessions. On the Democratic side, however, it is crucial that the squishy members be told in no uncertain terms that they must stop this bigot from getting onto the Appeals Court. The Democrats on the committee are Patrick Leahy (VT), Ted Kennedy MA), Russ Feingold (WI), Dick Durbin (IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Chuck Schumer (NY), and Ben Cardin (MD) who can all probably be counted on to oppose the nomination. And then there are the possible problems: Joe Biden (DE), Herb Kohl (WI), and Dianne Feinstein (CA).

Tagged as: congress, bush, judicial system

Howie Klein was president of his freshman class, drove to Afghanistan and Nepal, became the president of Reprise Records and started a blog called Down With Tyranny!. He's always hated tyrants.