I’ve said before, I’m not a lawyer. I’m pretty clear about the cavernous maw of emptiness I have in this category. In reading the “Lawless” article below, I was reminded that as a constitutional lawyer, Obama is going to have some particular viewpoints about the state of affairs in the Justice Dept. What we have seen up to this week has been non-committal, maybe even conservatively strict. In the past, I’ve debated to myself as to whether given his path to now he will wind up entrenching patterns in the Department of Justice, or restore the balance BushCo tried so hard to break asunder. This article expressed pretty well some of the musing and questions I have.
Obama Faces Legacy of Lawlessness at Justice
Career Lawyers Hired for Ideology Entrenched in Agency
By DAPHNE EVIATAR 1/2/09 6:00 AM
[After 29 years enforcing the civil rights laws at the Department of Justice, in 2002 Richard Ugelow was abruptly transferred from his position as deputy chief of employment litigation to an administrative job in the civil division, which defends the government against, among other things, claims of civil rights violations. Ugelow was just one of many highly experienced justice department lawyers who, beginning in the early years of the Bush administration, were transferred, demoted or otherwise pushed out of their positions at Justice because their aggressive enforcement of federal laws didn’t match the new administration’s conservative ideology….]
http://washingtonindependent.com/23564/obama-faces-legacy-of-lawlessness-at-justice
However, unable to be on the hopeychangy bandwagon, but naturally a hopeful person, I found myself feeling a little flicker today. If Obama does nothing else, he might do that for which he presumably experienced – preside as a non blue-lining “editor” over the new pages of the Justice Department. I still worry that the fulcrum of his balance is weighted too far to the right, but as Heidi Li SAYS, these appointments were somewhat encouraging, and it’s very nice indeed, that they are women.
Elena Kagan is currently Dean of the Harvard Law School. She was earlier associated with the Chicago Law School, and taught at the same time as Obama. She was held back from an earlier Clinton nomination of the US Court of Appeals in DC, by Orrin Hatch’s refusal to schedule a hearing and subsequent BushCo election. If she is confirmed she will be the first woman to hold the position of Solicitor General.
Adam Liptak, over the NYT intones:” Most of Ms. Kagan’s legal writings are dense, hedged and moderate.” I am sure Liptak means by “dense” he intends thickly packed or weighty or complex. So, except for that part, which I haven’t yet heard or seen from Obama, she sounds a lot like him. Click the Wiki link in her name above, and check out BOTH of the people she clerked for. I have a faint recollection that when Marshall was calling for his “Shorty”, he was looking for the alternative viewpoint. If nothing else, however, this has got to be a sock in the eye for anti-Clinton Repugs. Orrin, are you ready now?
Johnsen, a Yaley and not part of the never ending stream Harvardites we have seen, allowed me to speculate a little more on the inexplicable workings of NARAL this year, in shunning Clinton. However, she also worked for the ACLU, and is on the board of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
In addition, Susan Sher, not yet in Wiki, is going to be an Associate White House Council:
U of Chicago Hospital VP Susan Sher tapped to be White House associate counsel
By Lynn Sweet
On January 5, 2009 1:55 PM |
[WASHINGTON–Another Chicagoan is being tapped for the White House; Susan Sher, the vice president for Legal and Governmental Affairs and General Counsel at the University of Chicago Medical Center will be an associate counsel to President elect Barack Obama. Sher is a close friend of Michelle Obama–and her boss at the U of Chicago–as well as Valerie Jarrett–incoming White House adviser. Sher will provide legal advice to the incoming First Lady according to the transition as well as working on legal issues connected with health care policy…..]
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/01/u_of_chicago_hospital_chief_su.html
PUMA, The New Agenda, 4ERA, 51 Percent
Grab and Keel 
Leave a Reply