[News-releases] NOW Opposes Extremist Judicial Nominees--Regardlessof Gender

NOW Press Office
202-628-8669 Rebecca Farmer, x 116
202-785-8576 (fax) 

NOW Opposes Extremist Judicial Nominees--Regardless of Gender

November 13, 2003

"NOW continues to oppose Janice Rogers Brown, Carolyn Kuhl and
Priscilla Owen for seats on the federal bench," said National
Organization for Women (NOW) President Kim Gandy. "We hold every
nominee to the same standards, regardless of gender, and these women meet
an extremist standard, not a fairness standard. No judicial nominee will
or should receive less scrutiny for a lifetime appointment just because
she was born with ovaries." NOW has been working in coalition with
more than 100 groups--including the American Association for University
Women, People for the American Way, NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the
Mexican American Legal Defense Fund--in opposing these and other
ultraconservative nominees.

"Senate Republicans are lumping together the nominations of three
rightwing women judges--Brown, Kuhl and Owen--for a cloture vote,"
Gandy said. "Their Orwellian attempt to paint organizations and
activists who oppose these nominations as antiwoman is laughable. George
W. Bush and his Senate buddies aren't fooling anyone who cares about
women's rights as they push their pet judges through the Senate. NOW
activists across the country are contacting their senators by phone, fax
and email urging them to stay strong, and to filibuster every judicial
nominee who opposes women's rights and civil rights. To date, our members
have sent more than 170,000 messages to senators."

"As sitting lower court judges, Janice Rogers Brown, Carolyn Kuhl
and Priscilla Owen clearly demonstrated their inability to separate their
political ideologies from their judicial rulings," Gandy said.
"Brown was the first California Supreme Court Justice to receive an
"unqualified" rating from the state bar and still be nominated
by the governor. Complaints filed by her peers called her 'insensitive to
established legal precedent' and said she 'lacked compassion and
intellectual tolerance for opposing views.' As a Justice Department
Attorney in the 1980s, Kuhl urged the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v.
Wade and supported the publiclyfunded Virginia Military Institute's
refusal to admit women. Owen was rejected by Senate committee because of
her unconsionable record, and is known as part of 'far right wing' of the
Texas Supreme Court."

"It seems George W. Bush and his cronies think they have a gender
card to play when it's convenient for them to do so. To quote my tenyear
old daughter, 'as if!,'" Gandy said. "Perhaps GOP senators have
forgotten that over 80 percent of Bush judicial nominees are men and that
the GOP blocked more than a dozen strong female judges nominated by
President Clinton. The most serious problem we face now is that 98
percent of Bush's conservative nominees have been confirmed for lifetime
appointments (168 federal judges so far) and those judges are already
moving the federal courts away from their decadeslong history of standing
up for civil rights."

"NOW is grateful to all senators who have rejected the Bush
administration's misleading campaign to pack the courts with extremist
judges and we encourage them to continue the fight for a fair and
independent judiciary," Gandy said.

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