Elizabeth Warren: We Need to Stop Packing the Courts With Corporate Judges
Source: Mother Jones
On Thursday morning, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called on President Barack Obama to nominate more judges to the federal bench who have backgrounds serving the public interest instead of corporate America.
Of Obama's judicial nominations so far, just tenfewer than four percenthave worked as lawyers at public interest organizations, according to a report released Thursday by the Alliance for Justice, a network of civil rights organizations. Only 10 nominees have had experience representing workers in labor disputes. Eighty-five percent have been either corporate attorneys or prosecutors. At an event Thursday sponsored by several civil rights organizations, including the Brennan Center for Justice and the Alliance for Justice, Warren called for more balance in the system.
"Power is becoming more and more concentrated on one side," she said. "Well-financed corporate interests line up to fight for their own privileges and resist any change that would limit corporate excess
We have an opportunity to
fight for something that balances the playing field in the other direction."
Warren noted that now is the perfect time to take up that fight. Obstruction by Senate Republicans has stalled the confirmation of many of the president's judicial nominees over the years. More federal judgeships remained vacant during Obama's first term than during President George W. Bush's, and there are still more than 50 vacancies on the federal bench that need to be filled. "So it's unsurprising that the president and a majority of the Senate gravitated to nominating corporate lawyers
that most conservative senators could not object to," Warren said. In November, however, the Senate voted to put an end to GOP obstruction by ending the filibuster for judicial nominations. Now it only takes a simple majority of the Senate to confirm nominees to the federal bench. Theoretically, that means that Obama can nominate progressive candidates with experience representing the average American, and Democrats will be able to confirm those nominees without any Republican votes.
Read more: http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/02/elizabeth-warren-judicial-nominations-brennan-center
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)>>>Of Obama's judicial nominations so far, just tenfewer than four percenthave worked as lawyers at public interest organizations, according to a report released Thursday by the Alliance for Justice, a network of civil rights organizations. Only 10 nominees have had experience representing workers in labor disputes. Eighty-five percent have been either corporate attorneys or prosecutors.>>>>
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Tx4obama
(36,974 posts)... the Senators that give Obama the lists of names from which he picks the nominees from.
She needs to sit back and study the situation a bit more in depth before speaking publicly about the issue.
onwardsand upwards
(276 posts)More power to her!
And less power to the man that does not oppose all wars.
I love that woman, now we need more senators like her. The question remains will he do it or has he become that corrupted himself, I hope he remembers where he came from from.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)I'm soooo happy she beat that 'tomahawk chop' loser
bucolic_frolic
(43,476 posts)Her idea here is scintillating!
yurbud
(39,405 posts)because if so, it's working.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Lasher
(27,664 posts)But no other prominent Democrat is doing it, so that counts for something.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)but it's nice to see someone actually calling him out on his corporate-whoring bullshit
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)hollowdweller
(4,229 posts)It's really going to be a slow process to turn the country back to where the little guy has a chance.
First thing is what she is doing just to make the public aware how rigged the system is against the little guy.