The Southwick Scenario
Today’s issue of Roll Call reports that conservative senators are threatening political retribution--including a potential "shutdown" of the Senate--if the Senate Judiciary Committee votes down Judge Leslie Southwick’s nomination to the Fifth Circuit.
[Minority] Senators have been in discussions for weeks about how to get political mileage out of President Bush’s stalled judicial nominees, but sources say talks in recent days have honed in specifically on the possibility of shutting down Senate business if Southwick fails to make his way out of committee to the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote this month.
Opposing Judge Southwick are number of civil and consumer rights groups, such as the Alliance for Justice. According to one of their reports, Judge Southwick “has an 89 percent record of voting against workers, consumers and other victims in divided decisions.” When questioned by Senators on this record, AFJ adds, “he could not find a single non-unanimous case, of the more than 7000 opinions that he wrote or joined, in which he voted in favor of a civil rights plaintiff or wrote a dissent on behalf of a plaintiff.” The AFJ report also argues that Judge Southwick demonstrated a bias against claims of discrimination towards African-Americans, while simultaneously favoring allegations of discrimination against whites. According to the report, "Judge Southwick . . . routinely rebuffed allegations of prosecutorial racism against African Americans in jury selection while upholding allegations of anti-white discrimination levied against defendants."
In one case in particular, Judge Southwick joined a concurrence arguing that persons who "choose . . . the homosexual lifestyle" are less fit to raise children than straight parents. In another controversial decision, he joined a narrow majority in concluding a social worker was wrongfully terminated when she was fired for referring to an African-American co-worker by a racially charged term beginning with the letter "n."
Some advocates for Judge Southwick, such as the Committee for Justice, argue that Southwick’s troubles are the result of “Southern White Male Nominees Fac[ing] Bias in Senate.” They argue that opposition to Southwick is nothing more than "playing the race card.”
Writing in Slate, Emily Bazelon rejects the Committee for Justice's view. Bazelon argues that Judge Southwick “has a pattern of voting against workers and the injured and in favor of corporations," and adds that a "no" vote on his nomination would reflect the best interests of democracy. Southwick, she says, "looks like evidence that Bush and Lott are reverting to trying to ram through extremely conservative nominees. . . . But when the opposing party gains control of Congress, that should signal the president—any president—to move closer to the middle. If Bush appears to forget that, then it's up to the [Majority Senators] to remind him.”