Obama begins packingthe court with left-winger

Obama is doing the expected and beginning the tilt of federal courts toward the radical left. His nominee, David Hamilton, to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is clearly a left-winger.

Most people, unfortunately, don't realize the impact that unelected federal judges can have on their day-to-day life, liberty and pocketbooks. Someone like David Hamilton, allegedly a one-time fundraiser for ACORN, doesn't believe ordinary people are capable of controlling their own lives.

Futile as it may be, write your Senator opposing this choice, contact all the Republican Senators urging them to show courage and challenge this nominee, write your editors and talk to your neighbors. Borrow a leaf from the Democrats and "bork" David Hamilton.

Here are two blog entries on this left-winger who should not be allowed to sit on a federal appellate court.

From Powerline:

And so it begins

March 17, 2009 Posted by Paul at 11:25 AM

Barack Obama has selected a leftist, David Hamilton, to be his first nominee for the federal bench. Hamilton is Obama's nominee for a spot on the Seventh CIrcuit Court of Appeals. Appropriately enough, Hamilton reportedly was once a former fund-raiser for the radical activist outfit ACORN, a key Obama ally. He is also a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the ACLU.

Hamilton's record as a federal district judge confirms his ultra-liberalism. Recently, he invalidated a law requiring the registration of sex offenders. He also prevented enforcement of an Indiana law that required information and a waiting period before an abortion. The Seventh Circuit (the court to which Hamilton now has been nominated) found that the law in question was materially identical to a law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Casey decision. It noted that no judge in the land, other than Hamilton, has found such a law invalid since Casey was decided. Apparently, Hamilton did not consider himself bound by decisions of the Supreme Court with which he strongly disagreed.

In addition, Ed Whelan points out that Hamilton somehow managed to invoke the doctrine of substantive due process to suppress evidence of a criminal defendant's possession of cocaine. The Seventh Circuit unanimously reversed that ruling.

Not to worry, though, the New York Times calls Hamilton a "moderate."

From National Review Bench Memoes:

Seventh Circuit Candidate David Hamilton—An ACLU “Moderate”! [Ed Whelan]

In an article headlined “Moderate Is Said to Be Pick for Court,” the New York Times reports that President Obama’s first nominee to a federal appellate court seat is expected to be David F. Hamilton. Hamilton, appointed by President Clinton to a district judgeship in Indiana in 1994 (despite the ABA’s “not qualified” rating), is expected to be named to the Seventh Circuit.



It’s far from clear what justifies the article’s characterization of Hamilton as a “moderate” (or, as the article oddly puts it, as “represent[ing] some of his state’s traditionally moderate strain”—how does one represent some of a strain?). Was it perhaps Hamilton’s service as vice president for litigation, and as a board member, of the Indiana branch of the ACLU? Or maybe Hamilton’s extraordinary seven-year-long series of rulings obstructing Indiana’s implementation of its law providing for informed consent on abortion? That obstruction elicited this strong statement (emphasis added) from the Seventh Circuit panel majority that overturned Hamilton:



For seven years Indiana has been prevented from enforcing a statute materially identical to a law held valid by the Supreme Court in Casey, by this court in Karlin, and by the fifth circuit in Barnes. No court anywhere in the country (other than one district judge in Indiana [i.e., Hamilton]) has held any similar law invalid in the years since Casey. Although Salerno does not foreclose all pre-enforcement challenges to abortion laws, it is an abuse of discretion for a district judge to issue a pre-enforcement injunction while the effects of the law (and reasons for those effects) are open to debate.



Or perhaps Hamilton’s inventive invocation of substantive due process to suppress evidence of a criminal defendant’s possession of cocaine, a ruling that, alas, was unanimously reversed by the Seventh Circuit?



With “moderates” like Hamilton, imagine what Obama’s “liberal” nominees will look like.

03/17 11:03 AM