{"id":316263,"date":"2010-02-13T14:40:09","date_gmt":"2010-02-13T19:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/chen-butler-schroeder-three-judicial-nominees-up-senate-39420\/"},"modified":"2010-02-13T14:40:09","modified_gmt":"2010-02-13T19:40:09","slug":"chen-butler-and-schroeder-three-judicial-nominees-up-in-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/316263","title":{"rendered":"Chen, Butler and Schroeder: Three Judicial Nominees Up In Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 02.13.10 09:00 AM posted by John Park<\/p>\n

At its Executive Business Meeting on February 4, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent the nominations of Edward Chen, Louis Butler, Mary Smith, and Christopher Schroeder to the floor for consideration by the Senate. President Obama resubmitted those nominations in January after the Senate adjourned in December without acting on them.<\/p>\n

Chen, who has been nominated for a judgeship in the Northern District of California, was sent forward on a party line 12-7 vote. After three years in private practice, he worked as a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union from 1985 to 2001, when he became a federal magistrate judge. While with the ACLU, Chen participated in unsuccessful challenges to an Arizona referendum calling for the State\u0092s official business to be conducted in English, a California referendum that eliminated so-called \u0093bilingual education\u0094 and implemented other measures for teaching English to nonnative students, and a California ban on racial preferences in state education, employment, and contracting.<\/p>\n

While a federal magistrate judge, Chen objected to the singing of \u0093America the Beautiful\u0094 at a funeral, citing his \u0093feelings of ambivalence and cynicism when confronted by appeals to patriotism.\u0094 He has also endorsed the notion that judges should draw on their experiences, including \u0093one\u0092s ethnic and racial background,\u0094 in judging.<\/p>\n

Butler, who has been nominated for a judgeship in the Western District of Wisconsin, also went forward on a 12-7 party line vote. In 2000, he ran for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, challenging the then-incumbent Diane Sykes, but got only 34% of the votes and did not carry a single county. When Sykes was confirmed to a federal judgeship on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Wisconsin\u0092s Democratic Governor appointed Butler to finish out her term. While on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Butler helped to expand the rights of criminals and the scope of potential liability for businesses. He also helped to strike down legislatively-enacted limits on punitive damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. In 2008, the voters of Wisconsin declined to elect him to the court in his own right. Apparently, Wisconsin\u0092s Democratic Senators, who sent Butler\u0092s name forward, believe that they know more than the voters of Wisconsin, who had two opportunities to consider Butler\u0092s qualifications, about who will be a good judge.<\/p>\n

Smith, who has been nominated to head the Tax Division at the Department of Justice, likewise went forward on a 12-7 vote. Smith was nominated for this position notwithstanding that she has not held a job specializing in tax law, written or spoken on tax issues, or taken a continuing legal education course in tax law. According to the Department of Justice, while she is neither \u0093a traditional tax lawyer [n]or a tax specialist,\u0094 she does have \u0093extensive experience in financial litigation, both for and against the government.\u0094 Senator Kyl, who voted against the nomination, pointed out that there must be \u0093thousands of highly experienced tax lawyers who would love to have a job like this.\u0094<\/p>\n

Schroeder, formerly chief counsel for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee and now a law professor at Duke, went forward on a 16-3 vote. Schroeder has been nominated to head the Office of Legal Policy at DOJ. In his writings, he has objected to the use of cost-benefit analysis in the review of proposed federal regulations, and he told the Judiciary Committee that empathy is one of the qualities that should be part of a judge\u0092s decision-making process. While voting to send the nomination forward, Senator Sessions observed that Schroeder is a \u0093very strong partisan\u0094 and encouraged him to \u0093be careful about that.\u0094<\/p>\n

Each of these nominees must be confirmed by the Senate before they can begin serving. The Senate will have to consider them carefully given the concerns raised in the Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/13\/…-up-in-senate\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 02.13.10 09:00 AM posted by John Park At its Executive Business Meeting on February 4, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent the nominations of Edward Chen, Louis Butler, Mary Smith, and Christopher Schroeder to the floor for consideration by the Senate. President Obama resubmitted those nominations in January after the Senate adjourned in December […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}