Litigation

Republican Strafes as Obama Nears Choice

By Peter Hardin

A prominent Senate Republican met privately with President Obama in the Oval Office, then drove to a libertarian think tank and lit into the president.

That account came from the Salt Lake Tribune, which quoted Utah’s Sen. Orrin Hatch as telling the Cato Institute Wednesday about Obama’s process for picking the next Supreme Court justice:

“Last summer, President Obama talked often about how judges should be guided by their empathy. This year, the buzz phrase seems to be core constitutional values…This is the same old thing, just another cloaking device for judges who seek to control the Constitution.”

According to Fox News, Hatch criticized what he called Obama’s being “selective” about when to defer to Congress:

“He wants them to use values that are not within the Constitution to strike down legislation that he does not like, but wants them to ignore values that are in our written Constitution to uphold legislation that he does like.”

Hatch is an important Republican to watch when Obama announces his choice, perhaps early next week. But there is at least one Obama choice Hatch would like.  Hatch told Reuters that he would help get votes for Judge Sidney Thomas if Obama picked the sitting judge on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A different take about Obama’s views on judicial restraint, and criteria for picking someone to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens, comes from Linda Greenhouse in the Opinionator blog of the New York Times.

Elsewhere, CBS News’ Jan Crawford highlighted the pros and cons of the top four contenders. The pragmatic style of Solicitor General Elena Kagan when she was Harvard Law School dean, handling a dispute over U.S. military recruiting, is the topic of a New York Times article.

To learn more about the nomination process, politics, and Obama?s criteria, check out other Gavel Grab posts or visit Justice at Stake?s ?Replacing Justice Stevens? page.

Full post as published by The Gavel on May 07, 2010 (boomark / email).