Constitutional Law

Right Wing Targets Nominees Koh, Johnsen and Others

President Obama's legal nominees are the target of heated protests in some quarters, particularly the right-wing blogosphere. Opponents in the Senate have boycotted a hearing for Judge David Hamilton to join the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. A fight may be on the horizon concerning Thomas Perez's nomination to head the Justice Department's civil rights division. A vote on Dawn Johnsen's nomination to lead the Office of Legal Counsel has been criticized and delayed. And now, Harold Koh (pictured below), Obama's pick for the State Department legal adviser is braving a barrage of sensational attacks alleging a plot to incorporate Sharia law into the U.S. legal system.

 'The underlying legal charge from the right is that Koh is a ‘transnationalist' who seeks to subjugate all of America to elite international court,' writes Slate's Dahlia Lithwick. 'They amount to just this: The mere acknowledgement that a body of law exists outside of the United States is tantamount to claiming that America is enslaved to that law. The recognition that international law even exists somehow transforms the U.S. Supreme Court into a sort of intermediate court of appeals that must answer to the Dreaded Court of Elitist European Preferences.'

'Harold Koh, a former dean at Yale's law school, is not the first nominee to a legal position in the Obama administration to face the right-wing smear machine, but for now, he is where their ire is focused,' according to TAPPED. 'Similarly, Office of Legal Counsel nominee Dawn Johnsen is under fire, ostensibly for remarks she made comparing forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term to ‘involuntary servitude.''

Johnsen responded to those criticisms noting that they stem from the suggestion of an analogy buried in a footnote, and never represented the thrust of any argument that she embraced. Accordingly, observers focused on her ability and credentials, including former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, have praised her nomination. In another analysis, The New York Times recently dubbed her 'A legal adviser worthy of the job.'

Full post as published by ACS Blog on April 02, 2009 (boomark / email).