Possible Filibuster Of Justice Dept. Nominee Johnsen 'Hypocritical,' Washington Post Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Public Health;  Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 09 Apr 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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President Obama's nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Council is "likely to trigger ... a Senate filibuster and indignant squeals from members of the president's party that his nominees are entitled to an up-or-down vote," a situation that is similar to former President George W. Bush's nomination of John Bolton to become United Nations ambassador, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus writes in an opinion piece. Marcus writes that, as with Bolton's nomination, it is "not at all clear that Johnsen can amass the 60 votes needed to shut down debate." According to Marcus, Obama "risks losing this nomination unless he puts some presidential muscle behind it." Johnsen is the Obama administration's only Justice Department nominee to pass the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote, which Marcus writes is an "ominous sign." Marcus notes that she knows both Bolton and Johnsen personally, adding, "Dawn Johnsen is no John Bolton." Bolton "was as famously bristly as his trademark mustache," while Johnsen is "a slight, soft-spoken Sunday school teacher -- who also happens to be a serious legal scholar ... with impeccable credentials," according to Marcus. She continues, "But I do mean to remind the people who are considering a Johnsen filibuster how hypocritical this stance would be -- and to needle those who blocked Bolton's appointment about the seeds they helped sow with that maneuver."

Marcus writes, "For all the controversy over filibustering judicial nominees, the argument against it is stronger in the case of the executive branch," adding that the president is "entitled, absent extraordinary circumstances, to have the advisers of his choosing." Voting against a president's nominee is "a serious step," and voting to prevent a nomination from "getting an up-or-down vote kicks it up several notches," she continues. Marcus says that it is "unusual, and generally unwise, to use the filibuster to kill a president's choice for a Cabinet position, and certainly for a subcabinet appointee." In addition, it is "ludicrous to argue that Johnsen's nomination is one of those few that should rise to the level of meriting this treatment," according to Marcus. "One item in the bill of particulars against her involves a footnote in an abortion brief Johnsen signed 20 years ago that said forcing a woman to bear a child against her will was 'disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude,'" Marcus writes. It "may not have been the strongest legal argument, but Johnsen was not, as critics have asserted, arguing that the 13th Amendment protects the right to abortion," she says. Johnsen is "hardly the kind of nominee so extreme that she should not be entitled to an up-or-down vote," Marcus writes (Marcus, Washington Post, 4/8).

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