Tag: American Bar Association

David M. O’Brien in 1986. Claudine O’Brien David M. O’Brien, a scholar and author who dissected the Supreme Court’s internal machinations and ideological dynamics, treating it as a political institution as much as a legal one, died on Dec. 20 at his home in Charlottesville, Va. His daughter Sara O’Brien said the cause was lung cancer. Dr. O’Brien taught politics at the University of Virginia for almost four decades. “David came to realize that behavioral science was a better window into the justices’ thinking than the cases and statutes they would cite in an opinion,” Ronald K. L. Collins, a professor at the University of Washington School of Law, said in a telephone interview. “Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics” by David M. O’Brien. He said that he came away from his time at the court “with a sense of how political the institution is in terms of its operation — not in terms of bargaining and logrolling so much, but how political ideas and political ideologies really are very much alive at the court.” “Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics” by David M. O’Brien. Aware that moving too quickly could provoke a violent reaction in the South, they determined that “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional but did not order immediate desegregation. He noted, for example, that Justice Felix Frankfurter knew more about the court than any other member, but “proved a divisive influence because of his personality, because he was so petty, because he was so backbiting, because he was so persistent and insistent on his own views.” While extolling the virtues of being a team player, Dr. O’Brien said, Justice Frankfurter “turned out to be a lonely dissenter.” Dr. O’Brien said that Chief Justice Burger did not like “Storm Center” “because it portrays the justices as individuals with different judicial philosophies that often conflict.” As a result, he said, while many justices leave their papers to the Library of Congress, where researchers have easy access to them, Justice Burger, who died in 1995, left his to William & Mary Law School and imposed a moratorium barring access until 10 years after the last Justice who served with him dies, or 2026, whichever comes later. He met his future wife, Claudine Mendelovitz, there, and they married in 1982.

From the gripping Kavanaugh hearings to developments at the United Nations General Assembly, it’s been a busy week in American politics. Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination: Here’s where things stand now. [Read the story] But the vote came only after Republican senators agreed to a last-minute demand from Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona: to conduct a time-limited F.B.I. inquiry into the allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Kavanaugh. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who came forward last week with allegations that Judge Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago, was the first to testify before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Before the hearings on Thursday, two more women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against the Supreme Court nominee. [Read the story] In an article published Sunday, one of the women, Deborah Ramirez, alleged that Judge Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her at a dorm party during her freshman year of college. [Read the story] Additional Reading • Supreme Court Fight Goes Prime Time With Kavanaugh’s Fox News Interview • Debunking 5 (More) Viral Rumors About Kavanaugh’s Accusers • Trump Accuses Democrats of Running ‘Con Game’ Against Kavanaugh At the General Assembly, President Trump stuck to familiar themes. [Read the story] Additional Reading • U.N. General Assembly: Criticism and Praise for Trump Administration • Trump’s Tariffs May Hurt, but Quitting China Is Hard to Do • 5 Takeaways From Trump’s News Conference at the United Nations 38 days to go: Developments as the midterm elections near. • Sheldon Adelson Sees a Lot to Like in Trump’s Washington • Ellison, Trying to Clear Name, Calls for Investigation Into Abuse Claims _____________________ Today’s On Politics briefing was compiled by Emily Cochrane in Washington and Margaret Kramer in New York.

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh are over. We learned very little about the nominee that we did not know before. We know that he served for 12 years with distinction on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and is highly regarded by appellate lawyers across the political spectrum. On the first day of the hearings, he was introduced by Lisa Blatt, a former clerk of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and self-described liberal, feminist lawyer who has argued 35 cases before the Supreme Court — more than any other woman. The opposition to Kavanaugh is actually not about him, but about the man who nominated him, Donald Trump. The notion that any Trump nominee is illegitimate because he would shield Trump from hypothetical future subpoenas or prosecutions is belied by history. Kavanaugh has no closer relationship to Trump that those appointees did to the presidents who appointed them. Well, Kavanaugh was probably right. Kavanaugh has never suggested that current procedures for investigating the president are unlawful. If Kavanaugh is unacceptable as a justice to liberals and Democrats, no Republican nominee would pass muster.

Editor's Note: This report is part of the Series on Regulatory Process and Perspective and was produced by the Brookings Center on Regulation and Markets. And yet, one of the bills that would do the most to check the executive branch’s ability to act arbitrarily has almost no Democratic support and next to no coverage in the mainstream press. [1] The bill is the Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA), S. 951, sponsored by Sen. The bill will now look for a way to get to 60 votes in the Senate, but its prospects do not look bright. On a principled basis, the RAA’s supporters present the bill as an effort to update the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in line with the recommendations of such nonpartisan expert groups as the American Bar Association and the Administrative Conference of the United States. New requirements to develop full cost-estimates for three alternatives will slow down the regulatory process and create new opportunities for industry groups to tie up agencies in litigation. They also object to bringing independent agencies’ benefit-cost efforts under the auspices of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), as the RAA would do, noting the importance of preserving agency independence. Democrats, on the other hand, are standing up for a more autonomous, “independent” executive branch–even as they take to the airwaves to warn of the grave damages the current president can cause because of the executive’s great power and denounce several agency heads as hopelessly corrupt. For conservative Republicans, the most important triumph during the Trump administration has been the appointment of conservative judges. There is a real disagreement between the parties about the relationship between the executive and the other branches, and it appears to be more than just a passing hangover of the Obama years.