Speculation centers on Edith Clement for SC Justice

[PDittie]

An announcement could come as soon as http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050719/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_bush">today.

And look at this:

Known as a conservative and a strict constructionist in legal circles, Clement also has eased fears among abortion-rights advocates. She has stated that the Supreme Court "has clearly held that the right to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution includes the right to have an abortion" and that "the law is settled in that regard."

Color me speechless (but only if it happens).

:wow:

[DefenseLawyer]

1. You had better look at that quote in context

If she was talking about a ruling in a Court of Appeals case, that quote only states the obvious, that Supreme Court precedent would not allow a contrary conclusion in the lower court. It doesn't necessarily mean that she wouldn't overturn the precedent on the SC if she had a vote.

[HockeyMom]

2. Clement versus Jones

It all boils down to corporate interests versus religious interests. It seems that Clement is the corporate pick (Texas Oil companies), whereas Jones will satisfy the religious right(very much anti Roe). So which would Bush favor; business or religion?

While I think he would go with the corporate interests, I saw a comment by one Freeper. Apparently, Santorum met with Spector in closed door meeting and came out saying he was "very pleased". That does not bode well.

[PDittie]

4. Clement seems to be a big fan of stare decisis

and she's in Washington DC today, according to msnbc just now (and as it so happens, Bush is making an announcement tonight).

So what do you think? Good, bad, or can't tell?

[papau]

3. Google suggest Judge Edith Clement is anti-abortion/very conservative

anti-abortion - but will not directly overturn Roe v Wade

finds from google:

"I received the following email this morning from a reliable source and long-time SA reader:

Morning ....,

Our office got a call yesterday from __________ of the with questions on Judge Clement. She’s on the short-short list, apparently, and she’s one of us. Things are looking good!"

and:

Profile of Potential Supreme Court Nominee - Judge Edith Brown Clement
Brief biography:
Judge Clement currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Prior to her appointment by President George W. Bush, she was a judge on the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana (1991-2001) and a lawyer with Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere & Denegre in New Orleans (1975-1991).

Judge Clement was born in Birmingham Alabama in 1948. She attended the University of Alabama and Tulane Law School. She clerked for Judge Herbert W. Christenberry, a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Notable opinions:
A majority opinion in Vogler v. Blackmore, 352 F.3d 150 (5th Cir. 2003), reducing a jury verdict for pain and suffering damages to the estates of a mother and three-year old daughter killed when an eighteen-wheel tractor trailer crossed the highway center-line and ran over their car. The damages to the mother were reduced from $200,000 to $30,000 and the pain and suffering award for the daughter was eliminated entirely based on the lack of specific evidence about the daughter's "awareness of the impending collision."

and
So Long Sandra, Hello Edith?

July 11, 2005 Supreme Court Vacancies

<snip>Edith Jones has the sharper definition as a conservative, tagged as pro-life in her perspective, and she is bound to draw the heaviest fire. Joy Clement, in contrast, would be a harder target: Her own specialty was in maritime law; she has not dealt, in her opinions, with the hot-button issues of abortion and gay rights; and she has stirred no controversies in her writings or in her speeches off the bench. She would be the most disarming nominee, and it would be a challenge even for Ralph Neas or Moveon.org to paint her as an ogre who could scare the populace. The main unease would come in the family of conservatives: If people don't know her personally, they will suspect another Souter or Kennedy. For they have seen the hazard in relying on the assurances given even by the most reliable conservatives, who claim they can vouch for the nominee. <snip>


And what is that most important work? For the conservatives, the most consequential shift would come in flipping the decision on Stenberg v. Carhart (2000) and upholding the federal ban on partial-birth abortion. Either one of the Ediths would guarantee that outcome; and in my own reckoning, such a decision on partial-birth abortion would virtually bring to an end the Roe v. Wade regime. For it would send up a signal to legislatures throughout the country that the Court was now open for business in sustaining many varieties of restriction on abortion. They might be measures to require the method of abortion most likely to preserve the life of the child, or measures actually to bar abortions late in pregnancy, or abortions ordered up because of the likely disabilities or afflictions of the child (e.g., Down's syndrome, spina bifida). Just whether or when Roe v. Wade is actually, explicitly overturned may cease to matter quite as much. For in the meantime, the public would have the chance to get used to a continuing train of laws restricting and regulating abortion. Ordinary people would be drawn in to talk again about the circumstances under which abortions may be justified. And that talk, among ordinary folk, will become more and more common because those they elect, sitting in local legislatures, will be enfranchised again to pass laws and make judgments on these matters.

If that sense of things is right, then it could make a notable difference if the decision that upholds the law on partial-birth abortion -- and the decision turning the law on abortion onto a different axis -- were written and announced by a woman. That is not to give in to the small-mindedness that is everywhere about us. For there are enough clichés abounding, tagging the right to abortion as "a woman's right." The cliché masks the fact that women, in the aggregate, have ever been more reserved about abortion than men, and that the strongest support for abortion has steadily come from middle- and upper-class white men. When the Court begins to explain again the grounds for protecting children in the womb, that account may produce a more lasting resonance if the explanation comes from a woman. At the same time, we could only run the risk of feeding the worst clichés in our politics if the only woman on the Court was Ruth Ginsberg, and if the Voice of the Woman on the Court spoke only in the accents of the Left. The commentators who have been clamoring these days for "balance" on the Court have not exactly been clamoring for a balance between women. And yet it would be no descent into a low politics to show that a woman’s perspective may express itself in an attachment to the moral tradition and to a conservative jurisprudence. <snip>
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The implication is that this is the best Bush will offer up! Does not seem much of a compromise until you think about Edith Jones of the 5th! So should we be cheering somebody who is for reducing liability judgements and would nibble away at regulating abortions to make Roe v. Wade irrelavant?