Constitutional Law

Dellinger Questions Criticisms Of OLC Nominee Dawn Johnsen

In a post for Politico's 'The Arena,' former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger examines the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-7 last week to send the nomination to the entire Senate for consideration. Johnsen (right) is a professor of law at Indiana University School of Law and former acting assistant attorney general for OLC during the Clinton administration.

Dellinger says Johnsen's critics have raised unfounded criticisms of her professional career:

Dawn's legal work at the outset of her career for a pro-choice advocacy organization (at a time it seemed the Supreme Court soon might overrule Roe v. Wade), and her more recent work for the American Constitution Society have also been raised against her. But the relevant question is not what causes or parties an individual has worked for in the past, but whether this is a person who can put those prior public service efforts aside when entering into the United States Department of Justice. Officials of both parties have shown that men and women of character do just that. For example, one of our most admired former Justice officials, Theodore B. Olson, has shown how it is done right. Both before and after heading OLC and servicing as Solicitor General, Ted Olson, has been an active, committed and effective advocate for his political party and for conservative causes. But everyone who follows the administration of justice knows that when he assumed the duties at the Department, he left his party and his politics at the door and advanced no interest other than the interests of the United States. Dawn's work at OLC shows that she is cut from the same cloth.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on March 23, 2009 (boomark / email).