Overview of Nominees
Packing the Courts: President Bush’s Nominees to Lifetime Federal Judgeships Threaten the Environment
Myers Talking Points
William Myers’ Nomination to a Lifetime U.S. Court of Appeals Judgeship Threatens a Wide Range of Environmental and Other Protections.
Background: Jeffrey S. Sutton
In his writings and speeches, Mr. Sutton has advanced a view that pits the federal government against the states, doing violence to notions of cooperative federalism that underlie most environmental, health, and safety legislation.
Lawrence J. Block’s Troubling Record on Takings
Mr. Block's record and his answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee Questionnaire for Judicial Nominees suggest that he would apply an extreme approach to takings law that would conflict with unanimous Supreme Court rulings.
Testimony of Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Legal Correspondent,
"In addition to the trend toward overruling precedent by stealth, the court has been able to make dramatic changes without even a modicum of drama by chipping away at our access to the courts. Be it through the doctrines of constitutional “standing” or “ripeness,” by virtually doing away with facial constitutional challenges, or by subtly shifting the burden of proof on plaintiffs – it is becoming materially harder for victims of any sort of injustice or discrimination to access the very protections this congress has enacted. ... from environmental protections to worker
protections, to civil rights legislation, Congressional guarantees of equal
justice are only as robust as a citizen’s power to march into a courtroom.
That doorway gets narrower every year."
Summary of Opposition to Splitting the Ninth Court of Appeals
Opponents of proposals to split the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals include the vast majority of judges from the Ninth Circuit, elected officials, bar associations, law professors, prominent practitioners, editorial boards, and civil rights, women's rights, disability rights, labor, health, religious, conservation and other national, state and local groups.
H.R. 4772, A “Hammer to the Head” to Local Communities
Federal “takings” legislation, reported out of the House Judiciary Committee in July 2006, would make it harder for local communities to fight crime and fires, regulate adult entertainment clubs, reduce pollution, and protect open space.
Report of PFAW on Myers
Report of People For the American Way in Opposition to the Nomination of William G. Myers III to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.