Janice Rogers Brown

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The Honorable Janice Rogers Brown
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The Honorable Janice Rogers Brown

Janice Rogers Brown (born May 11, 1949 in Greenville, Alabama) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She previously was an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, holding that post from May 2, 1996 until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit. She is noted for her conservatism and blunt writing style.[citation needed]

President George W. Bush nominated her to her current position in 2003. However, her nomination was stalled in the U.S. Senate for almost two years due to Democratic opposition. She began serving as a federal appellate court judge on June 8, 2005. She has been frequently mentioned as a possible Bush nominee to the United States Supreme Court. [1].

Contents

[edit] Family and education

Judge Brown is an Alabama sharecropper's daughter who attended segregated majority African American schools as a child. She earned her B.A. from California State University, Sacramento in 1974 and her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the UCLA School of Law in 1977. In addition, she received a LL.M. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2004.

[edit] Early law career

For most of the first two decades of her career, Brown worked for government agencies. She was Deputy Legislative Counsel for the Office of Legislative Counsel in California from 1977 to 1979. She then spent eight years as Deputy Attorney General for the Criminal and Civil Divisions of the California Attorney General's Office. She was Deputy Secretary and General Counsel for California's Business, Transportation, and Housing Authority from 1987 to 1989 (and a University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law Adjunct Professor from 1988 to 1989).

She briefly entered private practice as an Associate of Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor from 1990 to January 1991, when she returned to government as Legal Affairs Secretary for Governor Pete Wilson from January 1991 to November 1994. The job included diverse duties, ranging from analysis of administration policy, court decisions, and pending legislation to advice on clemency and extradition questions. The Legal Affairs Office monitored all significant state litigation and had general responsibility for supervising departmental counsel and acting as legal liaison between the Governor's office and executive departments. [1] In November of 1994, Wilson appointed Brown to the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District.

[edit] California Supreme Court Associate Justice

In May of 1996, Governor Pete Wilson appointed Brown as Associate Justice to the California Supreme Court. Prior to the appointment, she had been rated "not qualified" by the State Bar of California's Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, which evaluates nominees to the California courts. She was the first person to be appointed after receiving that rating. The basis of that negative rating, according to the Commission, was her lack of judicial experience. [citation needed] Brown had then been sitting as a Justice on the Third District Court of Appeal of California (an intermediate appellate court below the California Supreme Court) for less than two years. Brown was praised in the JNE Commission evaluation for her intelligence and accomplishments, however. [citation needed]

While on the California Supreme Court, in Hi-Voltage Wire-Works, Inc. v. City of San Jose, Brown wrote the majority opinion overturning a program of racial set-asides adopted by the city of San Jose under the guise of community outreach. The opinion upheld an amendment to the California Constitution which banned "discriminat[ing] against or grant[ing] preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." In another case, Brown dissented from an opinion striking down a parental consent law for abortions.

There were times during her tenure on the California Supreme Court that Brown demonstrated positions which may be considered out of character with traditional Conservative judicial philosophy, such as on criminal sentencing, freedom of speech and gun control.[citation needed] She was the lone justice to contend that a provision in the California Constitution requires drug offenders be given treatment instead of jail time. In 2000, she authored the opinion in Kasler v. Lockyer, upholding the right of the State of California to ban semi-automatic firearms, and of the Attorney General of California to add to the list of prohibited weapons. Her opinion in that case clearly explained that the decision was not an endorsement of the policy, but rather recognition of the power of the state.

Her reputation for libertarian political beliefs may be attributed to a speech she delivered to the Federalist Society at University of Chicago Law School in 2000. Brown’s speech mentions Ayn Rand and laments the triumph of "the collectivist impulse", in which capitalism receives "contemptuous tolerance but only for its capacity to feed the insatiable maw of socialism." She complains that "where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies," and suggests that the ultimate result for the United States has been a "debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."

Her remarks gained particular attention, however, for her thesis that the 1937 court decisions upholding minimum-wage laws and New Deal programs marked "the triumph of our own socialist revolution", the culmination of "a particularly skewed view of human nature" that could be "traced from the Enlightenment, through the Terror, to Marx and Engels, to the Revolutions of 1917 and 1937." She calls instead for a return to Lochnerism, the pre-1937 view that the Constitution severely limits federal and state power to enact economic regulations. In an exegesis of Brown's speech that was largely responsible for bringing it to public attention during Brown's confirmation process in 2005, the legal-affairs analyst Stuart Taylor, Jr., noted, "Almost all modern constitutional scholars have rejected Lochnerism as 'the quintessence of judicial usurpation of power'", citing in particular "leading conservatives—including Justice Antonin Scalia, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and former Attorney General Edwin Meese, as well as [Robert] Bork".[2]

[edit] United States Court of Appeals Judge

Brown was nominated by President Bush to the D.C. Circuit on July 25, 2003 to fill a seat vacated by retired Judge Stephen F. Williams. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on her nomination on October 22 of that same year. After her name had passed out of committee and had been sent to the full Senate, there was a failed cloture vote on her nomination on November 14, 2003. Brown's nomination was returned to the President under the standing rules of the Senate when the 108th Congress adjourned.

Bush renominated Brown on February 14, 2005, early in the first session of the 109th Congress. On April 21, 2005 the Senate Judiciary Committee again endorsed Brown and referred her name to the full Senate once more. On May 23, Senator John McCain announced an agreement between seven Republican and seven Democrat U.S. Senators, the Gang of 14, to ensure an up-or-down vote on Brown and several other stalled Bush nominees, including Priscilla Owen and William H. Pryor, Jr..

On June 8, Brown was confirmed as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by a vote of 56-43. She received her commission on June 10. Although no official announcement of her swearing-in ceremony was made, she began hearing federal cases on September 8, 2005. Interest groups on the ideological left such as the NAACP opposed the confirmation of Brown, labeling her "Extreme Right-Wing,"[2] as did the Feminist Majority Foundation, "extreme right-wing,"[3], People For the American Way, "extreme right-wing,"[4] the National Council of Jewish Women, "extreme right-wing"[5] Senator Ted Kennedy, "extreme right-wing,"[6] and the National Organization for Women, "extreme right-wing."[7]

During the summer of 2005, she was considered a candidate to replace Sandra Day O'Connor as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, but John Roberts was chosen instead.[citation needed] Later, after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and a change in Roberts' nomination to replace Rehnquist, O'Connor's position again became available. However, White House counsel Harriet Miers was nominated on October 3. With Miers' withdrawal of her nomination on October 27 speculation again arose that Brown would emerge as President Bush's choice for the Court. [citation needed] On October 31, the President nominated Judge Samuel Alito of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to O'Connor's seat, and he was confirmed by the Senate on January 31, 2006.

[edit] External links and references

[edit] References

Hi-Voltage Wire Works, Inc. v. City of San Jose, (2000) 24 Cal.4th 537 , 101 Cal.Rptr.2d 653; 12 P.3d 1068 (California court decision overturning race-based contracting set-asides adopted by the city of San Jose, California. Link requires free registration.)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The Most Often Mentioned Candidates And The Prospects For A Senate Fight (June 8, 2005).
  2. ^ Civil Rights Federal Legislative Report Card, 109th Congress, First Session (PDF). NAACP (January 2006). Retrieved on 2006-10-06.
  3. ^ Feminist News WireAccessed October 5, 2006
  4. ^ People for the American Way Accessed October 5, 2006
  5. ^ NCJW Deeply Concerned by Confirmation of Janice Rogers Brown (Press release) National Council of Jewish Women, Accessed October 5, 2006
  6. ^ Senator Kennedy's Floor Speech on the Nuclear Option Accessed October 5, 2006
  7. ^ Battle Continues Over Right-Wing Judicial Nominees National Organization for Women, Accessed October 5, 2006
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