Ethics

Consistent Conservatives on Supreme Court Nominations

By Ed Brayton

Christopher Eisgruber, a provost at Princeton University, has a brief post at Politico about some conservatives who argued for legislative deference for Supreme Court nominees now maintaining that consistent position with Obama in the White House and saying that Senate Republicans should vote in favor of Sotomayor and other Obama nominees:

Kudos to conservative lawyers Doug Kmiec, Ted Olson, and Ken Starr for sticking to their principles about executive branch nominations. When the Republicans held the White House, Kmiec, Olson, and Starr argued that Democratic senators had a duty to defer to the president when he nominated judges and executive branch lawyers. Now, with a Democrat in the White House, they have held to that position.

Kmiec, who ran the Office of Legal Counsel to the President under Ronald Reagan, wrote a letter calling upon senators to confirm President Obama's embattled nominee to head the OLC, Dawn Johnsen. Olson and Starr came to the defense of Harold Koh, the former Dean of the Yale Law School whom Obama has nominated as legal adviser to the State Department.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on June 25, 2009 (boomark / email).