Philadelphia, Pa., May 23, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Democratic senators refuse to vote on President George Bush’s judicial nominees, claiming they are “extreme.” But Wendy Long, former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, says their opponents are really “hiding from a debate, and hiding from a vote, precisely because these highly qualified judges are the mainstream.”
Long was referring in particular to judicial nominees Justice Priscilla Owen of Texas and Justice Janice Rogers Brown of California.
In an opinion piece published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Long described the two judges as “intellectual stars on the courts where they now sit.”
The two judges “have the overwhelming bipartisan support of the citizens of their states, the American Bar Association, the bench and bar, and newspapers across the political spectrum,” wrote the legal counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network.
Long emphasized that these two justices’ most important qualities are their demonstrated tendency to judicial restraint.