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Who is Janice Rogers Brown?
I'm checking out Fox News and they are talking about Bush's nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to a seat on the D.C. Court of Appeals.....Anyone know her story?
All I know is that Orin Hatch (Toby - I mean Clarence - Thomas' buddy) is on Fox talking about how unfair she is being treated. |
From what I heard this morning from Tavis Smiley on the Tom Joyner Show, she is like a Catch-22 for "us." She is an African-American woman that has been nominated by Dubya for the Appellate(sp?) Court, which happens to be a "feeder" for the Supreme Court. The catch? Even though she is a sista, she is said to be the female version of Clarence Thomas. :rolleyes: You do the math....
If I can find more info, I'll post it. Hope that helps. |
Here's an article about her to give you some insight.
LA Times: Appeals Court Nominee in for a Fight 10.18.2003 — Civil rights groups deplore choice of conservative justice for federal bench Maura Dolan Janice Rogers Brown, one of the most conservative members of the California Supreme Court, is expected to face a tough fight in the U.S. Senate over her nomination to a federal appeals court. President Bush nominated Brown in July for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a prestigious court that regularly decides challenges to administration policy and is considered a steppingstone to the U.S. Supreme Court. "What makes Janice Brown a certain for a confirmation fight is in part ideology, and in part concerns about her judicial temperament," said USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who opposes the nomination. Yet three other law professors who closely follow the California court -- a moderate Republican, a moderate Democrat and a liberal Democrat -- all believe Brown should be confirmed. Former Gov. Pete Wilson appointed Brown to the state high court even though a State Bar committee found her unqualified, a rating the three analysts said was mistaken. If she is confirmed, Arnold Schwarzenegger, after taking over the governor's office, will fill the vacancy on the seven-member state Supreme Court. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on her nomination for Wednesday. Civil rights groups already have combed Brown's record and called for her rejection. Brown, who is African American, also is opposed by the state and national black lawyers' associations and the Congressional Black Caucus. The American Bar Assn. has rated her "qualified" for the federal post, rather than either the superior "well-qualified" endorsement or the thumbs-down, "unqualified" rating. Even the "qualified" rating was lukewarm: Fewer than 10 of the 14 members on the committee considered her fit for the appeals court. Few dispute that Brown has a strong intellect, a talent for writing and a penchant for hard work. She laces her highly readable opinions with historical and literary references, and is one of the biggest producers of opinions on the state high court. What worries civil rights groups is her conservative political philosophy and her tendency, they believe, to ignore precedent if it does not conform to her personal views. In contrast, Anthony T. Caso, senior vice president and general counsel of the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative, nonprofit public interest law firm, praised Brown as a jurist who looks to the intent of the framers of the Constitution when she interprets it. "In terms of her written opinions, I probably would put her pretty close to Justice Clarence Thomas" on the U.S. Supreme Court, Caso said. In a speech three years ago, Brown described herself as a "true conservative." "Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies... The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible," she said. During her tenure on the California Supreme Court, Brown has voted in favor of a state law requiring minors to obtain parental consent for abortions, opposed affirmative action and appeared critical of government regulations that deprive private property owners of full use of their property without compensation. In criminal cases, she has been less predictably conservative, ruling at times for defendants she believes have been improperly searched by police. Beyond her legal views, Brown can be caustic and even personal in her dissents, taking on colleagues on the court in a way that court analysts have said belittles their intelligence. "She is not the appointment I would make, but I don't think she should be resisted or opposed on the ground she is a right-wing ideologue," said University of Santa Clara law professor Gerald Uelmen, a liberal. "The margin that separates her from the center on the court is relatively narrow." When a legal journal last year compared Brown with five conservative federal judges considered potential Bush nominees for the U.S. Supreme Court, Brown was the least consistently conservative of the group, Uelmen noted. "I don't see her as rigid," he said. "I think there is enough give there, especially in criminal cases." UC Berkeley emeritus law professor Stephen Barnett said Brown is conservative "but not monolithically so," and is "increasingly controlling" a tendency to insert her political views into rulings. "She will make waves on the D.C. circuit, but I think she is well above the line that might justify a filibuster," said Barnett, a moderate Democrat. Like Uelmen and Barnett, McGeorge School of Law professor Clark Kelso has at times criticized Brown's dissents as too biting and personal. But he said that should not keep her off the D.C. circuit. Compared with the rulings of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Brown's dissents are mild, said Kelso, a Republican. One of Brown's most controversial opinions came three years ago in a case that upheld Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action law. "With the approval of Proposition 209," she wrote, "the electorate chose to reassert the principle of equality of individual opportunity as a constitutional imperative." All the justices agreed with the result, but Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar refused to sign Brown's opinion. George, whose separate opinion was signed by Werdegar, complained that Brown had been "less than evenhanded" in disparaging all affirmative action programs. Caso, of the Pacific Legal Foundation, noted that one of Brown's rulings had come in a case about whether an environmental assessment had to be made before an animal could be taken off the state's endangered species list. She ruled for the environmentalists. "I don't see an anti-government bias in all her rulings," he said. On gun control, Brown wrote a decision upholding the state's 1989 ban on assault weapons. "For good or ill," she wrote, "the Legislature stood up and was counted on this issue, one of the most contentious in modern society." But Brown was the sole dissenter in two other gun rulings that permitted counties to ban guns or gun sales on fairgrounds and other public property. In one of the cases, she noted that the ban conflicted with laws that permit some people to carry firearms without restriction. "The small and superficially benign acts of democratic government can erode personal freedom just as surely, and to the same end, as the large and malignant acts of a tyrant or dictator," she wrote. Brown dissented in a decision that upheld local laws requiring property owners to provide replacement housing or money when they convert residential hotels to tourist hotels. She described such laws as government "thievery." She was the only member of the state high court to vote against a ruling that restricted the use of stun belts, which discharge electrical shocks, on criminal defendants in the courtroom. And Brown wrote a majority opinion in a ruling that allowed cities to prohibit suspected gang members from engaging in legal activities, such as congregating on a street corner. In another case, she was the only justice who opposed granting employees who are victims of age discrimination the same legal rights as victims of race and gender bias. But Brown took a more liberal stand when she dissented in a ruling that allowed police to search cars if the driver failed to produce a license or registration, and opposed another decision that gave police the right to arrest and search bicyclists who ride on the wrong side of the street and don't have identification. In the case of the bicyclist, she said, "No one would get arrested unless he looked like he did not belong in the neighborhood. That is the problem. And it matters." Among the groups opposing Brown are the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, People for the American Way, the NAACP and the Alliance for Justice. Conservative groups are expected to endorse her. Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, an association of public interest and civil rights organizations, predicted a "firestorm of opposition" to Brown. "I do not think she will be confirmed," Aron said flatly. Among Brown's supporters is Encino lawyer Ellis J. Horvitz, whose firm regularly appears before the state high court. He urged the Judiciary Committee to confirm Brown in a letter that described her as "possessing great common sense and integrity." http://www.allianceforjustice.org/ne...press&inform=2 |
As the former President of Spelman College and now President of Bennett College, member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Dr. Johnetta B. Cole has stated:
"All our skin-folks ain't our kinfolks." And that's all I have to say about that!! :D |
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I think she is a classic example of "our Kind of People" who have "made it" and figure its just as easy for anyone else who REALLY wants it. I've read her aopinins and followed her as i have other promonent AA women Judges and Attys she has a legal philophy (that is VERY common) and sticks to it and just happens to be a sista. *shrugs* Nothing surprises me anymore with our folk HA!
>>>"What makes Janice Brown a certain for a confirmation fight is in part ideology, and in part concerns about her judicial temperament," said USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who opposes the nomination. On a side note! I LOVE this man and he s so brillant, he taught us Con Law for bar review this summer and knew the ENTIRE 70 page lecture handout by heart!!!!!!!! Amazing reminds me of Bill Gates on Legal prozac...lol Great article HK! |
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I've read you post 3 times and still can't figure out whether you're pro or con on ole girl?... excuse me, Judge ole girl? |
This is why I love GreekChat
Thanks for keeping a sista informed:D
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Thanks for your opinion on though, but you are wrong in your "assestment" :rolleyes: . I was refering to how we as blacks do not support one another in general. How some of US are quick to criticze and browbeat their brotha or sista when they are bigger fish to fry. That is why I stated that the statement " all our skinfolk ain't our kinfolk" applies to MANY FACETS OF OUR CULTURE. Because unfortunately, every black is not my friend nor do they have the best interest of our culture in mind. This applies to everything frok BGLOs, music, companies, etc. to just plain being neighbors with one another. Maybe I should have elaborated for some, but I didn't feel the need to. :rolleyes: |
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Commentary from the NAACP
NAACP opposes PRESIDENT BUSH’S NOMINEE, EXTREME
RIGHT-WING JUDGE JANICE ROGERS BROWN TO US COURT OF APPEALS FOR D.C. CIRCUIT The Issue: President Bush has nominated Janice Rogers Brown, who currently serves on the California Supreme Court, to serve a lifetime appointment on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The NAACP strongly opposes this nomination, as Judge Brown has, throughout her career, been extremely antagonistic towards laws that protect Americans’ civil rights and civil liberties. Furthermore, she has consistently shown a real inability to separate her personal beliefs from her judicial activism. The DC Circuit is the second most powerful court in the country, as it oversees the actions of federal agencies as well as often being the last hope for DC residents (60% of whom are African American). The Supreme Court’s limited case load means that the DC Circuit often provides the final say on federal agency actions involving voting rights, affirmative action, labor relations, clean air standards and health & safety regulations. Furthermore, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is often seen as the holding area to the US Supreme Court; it has historically produced more Supreme Court justices than any other court. Janice Rogers Brown has no connection whatsoever to the District of Columbia, she is not a member of the DC bar and she has little, if any, experience with federal litigation. Furthermore, when nominated to the California Court of Appeals, Janice Rogers Brown was rated “not qualified” by the California State Bar Judicial Nominees Evaluation Committee. This rating was based in part on her tendency to inject her “personal and philosophical” views into her judicial opinions and her “insensitivity to established precedent.” So far in her career, Judge Brown has issued many opinions hostile to civil rights. For example, she wrote: Ü the principle opinion enforcing California’s Proposition 209, which outlawed Affirmative Action in education, and she even went so far as to expand it so that it also covered outreach efforts for minority and female-owned municipal subcontractors; Ü in opposition to a ruling that an injunction against racial epithets did not violate the First Amendment Ü in opposition to a ruling that California’s Fair Employment and Housing Commission had the authority to award emotional distress damages to victims of discrimination The Message: Ø Janice Rogers Brown has, though her numerous rulings from the California State Supreme Court bench, shown herself to be extremely hostile to laws intended to protect Americans’ civil rights and civil liberties. She has shown a genuine hostility towards such civil rights staples as affirmative action, basic civil rights protections, and public education. Ø Janice Rogers Brown’s own peers within the California State Bar Association found her to be unqualified to serve on the California State Court of Appeals due to her tendency to interject her personal and philosophical views into her judicial opinions. Ø Janice Rogers Brown is not qualified to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit; she has little, if any, experience with federal legislation, she is not a member of the District of Columbia bar and she has never lived in the DC area. Ø Her extreme right-wing views, and her willingness to interject them in her decisions and her decision-making process, regardless of judicial precedent, would clearly interfere with the pursuit of justice. |
N.Y. Times article
Here is a NY Times article about her...
The New York Times Out of the Mainstream, Again October 25, 2003 Of the many unworthy judicial nominees President Bush has put forward, Janice Rogers Brown is among the very worst. As an archconservative justice on the California Supreme Court, she has declared war on the mainstream legal values that most Americans hold dear. And she has let ideology be her guide in deciding cases. At her confirmation hearing this week, Justice Brown only ratified her critics' worst fears. Both Republican and Democratic senators should oppose her confirmation. Justice Brown, who has been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has made it clear in her public pronouncements how extreme her views are. She has attacked the New Deal, which gave us Social Security and other programs now central to American life, as "the triumph of our socialist revolution." And she has praised the infamous Lochner line of cases, in which the Supreme Court, from 1905 to 1937, struck down worker health and safety laws as infringing on the rights of business. Justice Brown's record as a judge is also cause for alarm. She regularly stakes out extreme positions, often dissenting alone. In one case, her court ordered a rental car company to stop its supervisor from calling Hispanic employees by racial epithets. Justice Brown dissented, arguing that doing so violated the company's free speech rights. Last year, her court upheld a $10,000 award for emotional distress to a black woman who had been refused an apartment because of her race. Justice Brown, the sole dissenter, argued that the agency involved had no power to award the damages. In an important civil rights case, the chief justice of her court criticized Justice Brown for "presenting an unfair and inaccurate caricature" of affirmative action. The American Bar Association, all but a rubber stamp for the administration's nominees, has given Justice Brown a mediocre rating of qualified/not qualified, which means a majority of the evaluation committee found her qualified, a minority found her not qualified, and no one found her well qualified. The Bush administration has packaged Justice Brown, an African American born in segregated Alabama, as an American success story. The 39-member Congressional Black Caucus, however, has come out against her confirmation. President Bush, who promised as a candidate to be a "uniter, not a divider," has selected the most divisive judicial nominees in modern times. The Senate should help the president keep his campaign promise by insisting on a more unifying alternative than Justice Brown. |
I fear the same thing is going to happen to her as happened to the Hispanic gentleman, Judge Estrada, that was left hanging by the Senate Judiciary committee for almost two years. Liberals will never allow this society to be colorblind. The only time they don't see color is when people agree with them.
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While I typically vote Democratic (I think I voted Republican in a general election 2 times in close to 20 years!) I am increasingly calling myself convervative, but this woman, no matter her color, takes the cake! Just reading some of the statements in the articles above send me over the edge! Racial epithets are free speech?!?! Worker health and safety laws infringe on the rights of business?? These statements really concern me. |
Here is some more info..
I had never heard of this woman until Lady1908 started this thread, so as I run across info, I'll post it.
Here is her bio: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/s...ices/brown.htm http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/s...ages/brown.jpg Associate Justice Janice Rogers Brown Since May 2, 1996, Janice Brown has been an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. From November 4, 1994, she was an Associate Justice of the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento. From January 7, 1991, to November 1994, Ms. Brown served as Legal Affairs Secretary to Governor Pete Wilson. The job included diverse duties, ranging from analysis of administration policy, court decisions, and pending legislation to advice on clemency and extradition questions. The Legal Affairs Office monitored all significant state litigation and had general responsibility for supervising departmental counsel and acting as legal liaison between the Governor's office and executive departments. Prior to joining Governor Wilson's senior staff, Brown was an associate at Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor, a government and political law firm. Before joining the firm in January 1990, Brown served for two and a half years as Deputy Secretary and General Counsel for the state's Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, working primarily with business regulatory departments. Brown came to BT&H after eight years (1979-1987) in the Attorney General's Office, where she worked in both the criminal and civil divisions. From 1977 to 1979, Brown worked for the Legislative Counsel. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Just from reading other information out there concerning her opinions on various cases, I can say that yes, her views give me cause for concern as well. |
Another Clarence THomas?
Article from msnbc.com
Another Clarence Thomas? WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — Introducing Janice Rogers Brown, President Bush’s latest nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said, “I confess I feel like I’m a participant in a Kabuki performance.” Like that ritualized Japanese theater style, the script and stagecraft seemed all quite familiar. Like Clarence Thomas, Brown is a Southern-born conservative, with an up-by-her-bootstraps life story, and a history of giving speeches warning of the dangers of big government. BROWN, A ONETIME aide to former California Gov. Pete Wilson, has served as a justice of the California Supreme Court since 1996. It is not uncommon for a president to select a judge who is not from Washington, D.C., to serve on the D.C. Circuit court. It is the most prestigious federal appeals court, partly because it is where five Supreme Court justices served before presidents chose them for the high court. Current D.C. Circuit alumni on the Supreme Court are Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. BOUND FOR THE HIGH COURT? Some court watchers see Brown herself as a potential future Supreme Court nominee. Her profile as an articulate, sometimes polemical black conservative makes such speculation almost inevitable. Brown is “a conservative African-American woman and for some, that alone disqualifies her” for the appeals court vacancy, contended Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Under questioning from Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., about her anti-big government speeches, Brown insisted, “I don’t hate government; I am part of government. ... I know that there are some things that only government can do.” Senior committee Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said he did not want to accuse Brown of undergoing a “confirmation conversion” when she backed away from a 1999 speech voicing doubts about whether the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution “incorporates” Bill of Rights protections, applying them to the states as well as to the federal government. But even Leahy’s use of “confirmation conversion” in his disclaimer summoned up memories of Thomas’ contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings 13 years ago. Before they became a salacious sex spectacle, the Thomas hearings focused on his apparent changes of heart on some issues. Just as Thomas had invoked the stern disciplinary image of his South Carolina grandparents who raised him, so too Brown in her testimony Wednesday invoked the memory of her Alabama grandmother, who taught her to survive the indignities of racial segregation. GRANDMOTHER’S TEACHINGS “You can be bowed, but not broken — unless you allow people to do that to you,” Brown recalled her grandmother teaching her. Another of her grandmother’s precepts: “There are no menial jobs. Do that job the best you can and someday when you go on to something better — and you will — they should say about you 10 years later, ‘That Janice, she was the best dishwasher we ever had.’” Adding to the sense of déjà vu at Wednesday’s hearing was the presence of a pivotal player from the Thomas drama: Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, always regarded as a swing vote on conservative nominees. Justice Thomas himself was a graphic presence at the hearings in the form of a crude cartoon from a Web site called Black Commentator that showed Thomas, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell as buffoonish figures applauding a grotesque caricature of Brown as Bush announced her nomination. Democrats didn’t explicitly threaten filibuster but said they were troubled by Brown’s record. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., cited her as “a lone dissenter in a great many cases involving the rights of discrimination victims.” He said she had “a disturbing position on the sensitive issue of affirmative action” since she viewed it as “entitlement based on group representation.” “Your record is that of a conservative judicial activist,” Durbin concluded. CRITICIZING HOLMES He and Brown spent much time jousting over her critique of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ dissent in a famous 1905 decision called Lochner vs. New York. Holmes had argued that the Constitution “is not intended to embody a particular economic theory,” while Brown said the framers saw property rights as essential to preserving personal liberty. Alluding to some of her provocative speeches, Brown assured Hatch, “I absolutely understand the difference in roles between being a speaker and being a judge.” She explained that her speeches to law school audiences, such as one in which she said Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was “the triumph of our own socialist revolution,” were intended to “stir the pot, get people to think, to challenge them a little bit.” As for her judicial decisions, Brown said, “I do the job the way it’s supposed to be done. I’m a principled judge, I’m not an ideologue of any persuasion.” Brown showed she had pretty sharp elbows as a politician too. In a what could have been seen as a swipe at heavily staffed senators, she explained, “My speeches are maybe not the greatest. I don’t have a speech writer and I do these things myself and I have a demanding day job, so I often don’t have lot of time to do them.” Later Brown got a zinger in at Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who quizzed her on her dissenting opinion in a case upholding a San Francisco ordinance that required hotel owners who converted their properties from residential use to transient use to pay the city a fee that would be used to help tenants who were forced out of the hotels. “I have a great sympathy for the need for low-income housing in San Francisco; I myself can’t afford to live there,” Brown told Feinstein. It seemed like a deftly subtle jab — since Feinstein grew up in the toney Presidio Heights section of San Francisco, served as the city’s mayor, and, married to wealthy investor Richard Blum, still has a residence there. WHERE SPECTER STANDS During a break in the hearings, Specter told MSNBC.com he was keeping an open mind on Brown as she fielded his questions. “I’m listening. I think that she’s a real legal scholar and her opinions do not show an extreme point of view,” he said. “You can’t put her in a pigeonhole.” Conservatives deride Specter as a liberal who abandons the party on key votes, most memorably in opposing President Reagan’s 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Specter played a high-profile role in challenging Thomas’s accuser, Anita Hill, in the 1990 hearings and voted to confirm Thomas, although he later voiced regret that the Judiciary Committee “rushed to judgment” on Hill and Thomas. He also said he was “very disappointed” with Thomas’s performance on the high court. Specter has voted to shut off the Democratic filibusters of Bush appeals court nominees Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor, but the filibusters have spared him the need to vote on confirming those nominees. Just as Brown is trying to win herself a new job, Specter is trying to keep his: he faces both a primary challenge next year from conservative Republican Rep. Pat Toomey and, if he survives that, a general election battle with Democratic Rep. Joe Hoeffel. A vote for Brown would help Specter beat Toomey, but would be used against him in his battle against Hoeffel. |
Advocacy Letter - Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Opposition to Janice Rogers Brown September 29, 2003 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights The Honorable Orrin G. Hatch Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 The Honorable Patrick Leahy Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee 152 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senators Hatch and Leahy: On behalf of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the nation’s oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition, with more than 180 member organizations, we write to express opposition to the confirmation of Janice Rogers Brown to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Brown’s record as a California Supreme Court justice demonstrates a strong, persistent, and disturbing hostility toward affirmative action, civil rights, the rights of individuals with disabilities, workers’ rights, and the fairness in the criminal justice system. Janice Rogers Brown has often been the lone justice to dissent on the California Supreme Court, illustrating that her judicial philosophy is outside the mainstream. Not only does she show an inability to dispassionately review cases, but her opinions are based on her extremist ideology and also ignore judicial precedent, even that set by the United States Supreme Court. Brown’s opinions on civil rights and discrimination cases are perhaps the most troubling part of her record, revealing a blatant disregard for judicial precedent and a desire to limit the ability of victims of discrimination to sue for redress. In Aguilar v. Avis Rent A Car Systems, Inc. 980 P.2d 846 (Cal. 1999), the trial court found that the employer had violated the California Fair Housing and Employment Act by creating a hostile work environment through the use of racial slurs directed at Latino employees. On appeal, the California Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s remedy that prohibited the use of racial slurs in the future, holding that prevention of such speech was not a violation of the employer’s First Amendment rights. Brown dissented, arguing that the First Amendment protects the use of racial slurs in the workplace, even when it becomes illegal race discrimination. Brown’s dissent virtually ignored several Supreme Court precedents. Her opinion also went so far as to suggest that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination, violates the First Amendment and is therefore unconstitutional. Janice Rogers Brown’s lone dissent in Konig v. Fair Employment and Housing Commission, 50 P. 3d 718 (Cal. 2002), would have seriously limited the redress options available to victims of housing discrimination. Brown found that the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing Commission, unlike the courts, did not have the right to award damages for emotional distress. Further, in Peatros v. Bank of America NT&SA, 990 P.2d 539 (Cal. 2000), Brown argued in dissent that the National Banking Act of 1864 pre-empted California’s fair employment law, thus preventing a bank employee from being able to file a lawsuit for race and age discrimination in state court. Justice Brown made this argument despite the fact that other more recent federal laws, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, would clearly supercede the 135-year-old banking law on this question. Brown has also expressed a desire to limit legal recourse for people with disabilities who are victims of discrimination. In Richards v. CH2M Hill, Inc., 29 P.3d 175 (Cal. 2001), an employee sued her employer for disability discrimination based on her employer’s refusal to reasonably accommodate her disability over a five-year period. The state trial court awarded the plaintiff emotional distress and economic damages. On appeal, the employer argued that the statute of limitations had run on the allegations that were more than a year old at the time the case was filed, and thus liability should be greatly reduced. In its majority decision upholding the trial court’s verdict, the California Supreme Court adopted a version of the “continuing violation doctrine,” under which there may be liability for acts occurring outside the statute of limitations if they are sufficiently related to acts occurring within the prescribed time period. Brown’s lone dissent argued against use of the “continuing violation doctrine.” Rather, she asserted her view that plaintiffs should have to file separate lawsuits, subject to separate statutes of limitations, for each act of discrimination. In City of Moopark v. Superior Court, 959 P.2d 752 (Cal. 1998), Brown argued in dissent against allowing a disabled city employee to bring a cause of action under the state common law prohibiting employers from firing workers in violation of well-established, substantial, and fundamental public policies, such as the policy against firing people because they have a disability. As the author of the only dissent in Stevenson v. Superior Court, 959 P.2d 752 (Cal. 1998), Brown argued that the plaintiff had failed to show that public policy against age discrimination “inures to the benefit of the public” or is “fundamental and substantial.” She further stated, “Discrimination based on age is not, however, like race and sex discrimination. It does not mark its victim with a ‘stigma of inferiority and second class citizenship’ (citation omitted); it is the unavoidable consequence of that universal leveler: time.” Brown has also shown hostility toward affirmative action. Her majority opinion in Hi-Voltage Wire Works v. City of San Jose, 12 P.3d 1068 (Cal. 2000) has made it nearly impossible to have a meaningful affirmative action program in California. Justice Brown’s opinion went so far as to also prohibit cities from requiring their contractors to reach out to subcontractor businesses owned by minorities and women. Her opinion also ignored legal precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite consistent Court rulings that, under the right circumstances, affirmative action is permissible under federal law, Justice Brown stated that affirmative action was at odds with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While some of the result in this case may have been dictated by Proposition 209, California’s anti-affirmative action ballot initiative, her opinion clearly misinterpreted Proposition 209 and the intentions of California residents who voted for it. One of Brown’s California Supreme Court colleagues, who concurred with the result of the case, wrote that Brown’s opinion seriously distorted history and that she was not correct when she wrote that past decisions in favor of affirmative action were “wrongly decided.” Justice Brown’s opinions have also shown great antagonism toward the rights of workers. In Loder v. City of Glendale, 927 P.2d 1200 (1997), a case addressing the constitutionality of a drug and alcohol testing program for employees of the City of Glendale, Brown, in dissent, explicitly rejected binding Supreme Court precedent that called for the use of a balancing test to weigh the interest of the government against those of its employees in assessing whether these types of tests were constitutionally permissible. Despite the clear Supreme Court precedent, Brown would have imposed a bright line rule allowing drug tests for all employees. This opinion raises very serious concerns about Brown’s commitment to upholding settled law in both the workers’ rights context and many other areas of civil rights and liberties. Brown’s extreme ideological opinions also extend to the rights of defendants. In People v. Mar, 52 P.3d 95 (Cal. 2002), the California Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a defendant who was made to wear a stun belt during his testimony at trial. The belt made the defendant uncomfortable and nervous and may have affected how the jury viewed his testimony. In her dissent arguing to uphold the requirement that the defendant wear the belt, Brown berated her colleagues in a brazenly sarcastic and highly critical way, belittling the court’s research into stun belts, accusing her colleagues of “rushing to judgment after conducting an embarrassing Google.com search,” and implying that a high school student could have done a better job than the chief justice in preparing the majority ruling. Also, Brown’s dissent in People v. Ray would have allowed a warrantless search of a person’s home as part of law enforcement’s “community care taking functions,” – an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against warrantless searches not recognized by the Supreme Court. When taken together, Justice Brown’s extreme positions, her tendency toward ideologically-driven judicial activism, and her disregard for settled law, disqualify her from being elevated to any federal court, much less the D.C. Circuit, with its unique position in the federal justice system. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has a critical role in our federal judicial system and is widely regarded as the second most important court in the United States, after the U.S. Supreme Court. Because of the importance of this court, it is critical that Justice Brown’s confirmation be rejected. For the reasons stated above, we urge the Judiciary Committee to reject Janice Rogers Brown’s confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. If you have any questions or need more information, please contact Nancy Zirkin at 202-263-2880 or Julie Fernandes, LCCR Senior Policy Analyst, at 202-263-2856. Sincerely, Wade Henderson, Executive Director Nancy Zirkin, Deputy Director cc: Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee |
Citing Extremist Views, Variety of Groups Oppose Judicial Nominee Janice Rogers Brown
By civilrights.org civilrights.org October 21, 2003 Although facing opposition from a broad coalition of groups, including civil rights, women's rights, workers' rights, seniors, disability rights, religious, and environmental, President Bush has added yet another controversial judicial nominee to the federal courts – Janice Rogers Brown. Brown has been serving as a justice on the California Supreme Court since May 1996, and was nominated by Pres. Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In a resolution approved this month, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., expressed several reasons for their opposition to Brown, particularly with respect to her opinions on civil rights. "Justice Brown's opinions on civil rights and discrimination cases are perhaps the most troubling part of her record, revealing a blatant disregard for judicial precedent and a desire to limit the ability of victims of discrimination to sue for redress," the resolution states. In a letter sent to senators earlier this month, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) also expressed its opposition to Brown. In the letter, LCCR said that Brown often has been the lone justice on the California Supreme Court to dissent, illustrating that her judicial philosophy is outside the mainstream. "Not only does she show an inability to dispassionately review cases," the letter said, "but her opinions are based on her extremist ideology and also ignore judicial precedent, even that set by the United States Supreme Court." At a news conference on Oct. 17, U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and members of the CBC released a letter, which strongly opposed the nomination of Brown, to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, and Ranking Member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "Ms. Brown has not been able or willing to divorce her personal views from the law that she has sworn to uphold," Rep. Cummings said. "The President's approach to selecting nominees has been exclusive to shutting out voices of reason. There are hundreds of well-qualified attorneys and legal scholars who would make excellent judges on our federal bench." According to LCCR, Brown is unfit to serve on the D.C. Circuit, which, next to the U.S. Supreme Court, is regarded as the most important court in America. |
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