From the WSJ:
Judge J. Michael Luttig, one of the country’s most prominent conservative jurists and once considered a likely Supreme Court nominee, has resigned from the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., to become senior vice president and general counsel for the Boeing Co. in Chicago.
In a three-page letter to President Bush today, Judge Luttig, a 1991 appointee of President George H.W. Bush, wrote of his particular pride in helping define the law in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “In the prosecution of those who committed the atrocities against America on that morning, the court has been asked to address some of the most complex and far-reaching legal questions of our day,” Judge Luttig wrote.
Because of the Bush administration’s policy of funneling terrorism-related cases to the Fourth Circuit, widely viewed as one of the most conservative federal courts, Judge Luttig has had occasion to write opinions concerning convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and on two U.S. citizens once held without charge as “enemy combatants.” Judge Luttig generally has sided with the government, seeing the executive branch as holding sweeping powers to protect national security.
[…]
Last year, as two vacancies appeared on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Luttig was widely reported to be on the White House short list, and his candidacy was touted by former clerks who had gone on to influential positions in the current Bush administration. But the positions ultimately went to two fellow alumni of the Reagan Justice Department, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. People close to the selection process said that it was unlikely President Bush would consider Judge Luttig for any future vacancies, as political imperatives all but precluded nomination of another white male for the high court.
[my emphasis]
This is likely correct—though sadly so (in theory, not necessarily in practice: most clear-thinking Americans would like the best nominee available, and wouldn’t likely concern themselves too much over incidental attributes like sexual plumbing or skin tone); unfortunately, most political calculations these days don’t factor in what clear-thinking Americans would consider appropriate, but instead either pander to (or fear) special interests, who agitate for a particular “type” of nominee.
To his credit, Bush didn’t follow up his Harriet Miers debacle by trying to replace her with another female nominee simply to replace her with another female nominee. But it is nevertheless far more likely that the next candidate chosen, should Bush get another opportunity to pick a SCOTUS nominee, will be either a woman or a minority.
Personally, I’d like to see Bush nominate Miguel Estrada or Janice Rogers Brown, should he get the opportunity (two candidates whom I noted I’d like to see him nominate before the Roberts, Miers, or Alito nominations). So I’m likely not as bothered by this news as are many legal conservatives, who will likely view this news as a depressing end to their hopes to one day see Luttig seated on the High Court as others.
(h/t STACLU; see also, Hot Air)
So Luttig hit the glass ceiling huh?
Oh, come on now – do you honestly think that the evil Zionist Neocon Cabal that REALLY runs things would allow someone with a name so obviously GERMAN to get ahead?
TW: Not this century, bubba.
Guy must be making BANK. Why else would you toss up a lifetime appointment. My guess, two years and he’s out, retired and living next to Anthony Robbins in Hawaii.
Or divorced, consulting and living in South Beach.
Or dead of a massive stress-induced heart attack.
Or sitting in a small room giggling while listening to intercepted overseas calls from Pakistan to the Butterball help line, the fascist.
TW: think. I think I’m going to get my five bucks worth today.
It’s actually dispiriting to me.
Isn’t the big issue still motivating whatever’s left of the motivated part of the Republican base about appointing judges?
If the circuit judges leave the minute a big company gives ‘em a fat juicy in-house counsel job, what’s the point of fighting so damn hard for them?
I smell a fair amount of ingratitude on Luttig’s part.
DU
Well…when you have gone as far as your are going to go…sometimes you look around for other opportunities.
Commenters elsewhere have commented that it’s unlikely that Bush, should another seat become available, would appoint yet another white guy to SCOTUS. Luttig probably (and probably correctly) assumes his opportunity has passed.
I’ll leave the enormity of that disappointment for other folks with superior legal scholarship than I possess to desicuss.
Luttig hasn’t had it easy. Remember his father and step-mother were brutally attacked in their own driveway and his father murdered.
Perhaps the job switch makes it unlikely, but why couldn’t a pres nominate a corporate counsel with Luttig’s experience to the SCOTUS?
Same reason he couldn’t nominate him even if he continued to sit on the 4th circuit. BECAUSE HE’S A WHITE GUY!!!!!
Also lets not forget how he treated the DOJ’s padilla litigation.
– An interesting aspect to the whole “gang of 14″/Confirmation derby came out of manueverings concerning the upcoming Terrence Boyle, and General Hayden hearings.
– As joined at the hip as PEW and the DNC is, and rabidly wedded to polls as the left is, I just have to believe that Congressional DummyCrabs have thier aides pouring over Conservative blogs to get a feel for ideas.
– You see someone post about Rove gleefully wringing his hands anticipating another round of Schumer/Kennedy/Pelosi/Reid stepping in the “soft on terror” doodoo pile with the Hayden hearings and the next day Schumer is all subdued tones, and consiliatory reasonablness, statinh he doesn’t care about Haydens Military background and will support him if he can be assured Hayden with keep independence within the agency.
– We’ll see if they can bridal their enthusiasm when they’re in fron of the camera’s with lots of TV face time. Partisan fervor generally gets the better of common sense, but stranger things have happened.
– Aside from that, it would appear that one of the Republican push-back plan items is to put up to 20 other nominees forth for various gov. slots, one spokesman saying the administration hopes these series of hearing will last right through the fall Comgressional elections. Obviously they want to give the Dembulbs maximum rope to hang themselves in front of the voting public.
OMG, he’s Batman!
TW: “tasteless.”
Yes, it was. Sorry, all.
There’s another factor that shouldn’t be overlooked in considering Luttig’s evidently diminishing SCOTUS prospects. From Jerry Markon in the Post:
“But he [Luttig] had a significant falling-out with the Justice Department late last year when he protested … what he suggested was the administration’s inappropriate manipulation of the legal system in order to avoid a further Supreme Court test of the president’s wartime authority. His public thrashing of the Justice Department was known to have been deeply upsetting to political appointees in the department.”
Note the follow-up story by Jess Bravin & J Lynn Lunsford, “Breakdown of Trust Led Judge Luttig to Clash with Bush: After Fight in Terrorism Case, Conservative Star Gives Up Court Seat,” WSJ, May 11, p. A1, which offers additional evidence that something other than Goldstein’s ideologically convenient race-&-gender based theory explains Luttig’s declining SCOTUS prospects & exit from the 4th circuit, most notably his bitter response to the administration’s conduct in Padilla & the White House’s furious public response.
Judge Luttig has set the bar rather high now for the blogospheric phrase “taken the Boeing.”
Turing Word: feel, as in, can you feel me?
Its cuz he was white and male dude. The Bush admin doens’t like those. The admin doesn’t care so much about whether you kowtow to their shifting legal rationales on the war on terror. Devotion? Loyalty? that means nothing to this administration. Its all about gender and race.
KH —
As you say, it was a follow-up story (which is why it isn’t included, though I think people brought this idea up already in the comments) and I’m perfectly open to a Luttig/administration clash having played a role in his decision to leave the bench.
But are you not willing to grant that another potential reason is the one I mention? Or rather, Luttig’s seeing the writing on the wall in this regard?
Also, did his dustup with the Bushies come after he was passed over for Miers and Alito?
I ask only because I know how you folks love the conspiracy theories and attributing bad faith to people.
Jeff,
First, I don’t mean it as a criticism that you didn’t mention newspaper accounts that appeared after you posted your comments.
Second, I certainly stipulate that the reason you mention could have played a role, although I think the preponderance of the evidence points elsewhere. It’s in the nature of things that we can’t know with any certainty, lacking direct access to Luttig’s (pardon the term) intentions. Given the public rancor between the parties, however, the reason you mention seems unnecessary. Even if Bush were hellbent on another white male, Luttig likely wouldn’t stand a chance now. At a minimum & taken at face value, the initial administration spin suggests an overdetermined outcome. Second, it seems odd that a White House that both aggressively protects its prerogatives & looks forward to the possibility of further nominations would put forward an explanation that telegraphs acceptance a reduction of its flexibility. Finally, as a general matter, I think it’s prudent to take with a grain of salt politically interested explanations of a person’s behavior offerred by hostile critics who themselves have no privileged access to the person’s thinking.
As your 3rd question suggests, Luttig’s criticism of the government’s conduct in Padilla followed the Miers & Alito nominations. (It also followed the Roberts nomination, between which, however, his original pro-administration holding in Padilla intervened.) Since you raise this in the context of speculation about the factors behind his Dec. 21 order, I don’t think it presumes too much to ask you whether you’re suggesting the nominations had anything to do with the order. I have no idea what your prior views on Luttig were, but will you agree, perhaps, that it’s a pretty damning verdict on a jurist’s character to suggest that he would decide such an important case on the basis of personal pique? And on the basis of what evidence? As Bravin & Lunsford report in today’s story, that is in fact what “people close to the Bush administration” are insinuating:
“They dismiss Judge Luttig’s opinion as a judicial tantrum, noting that it came after he was passed over three times for a Supreme Court position. President Bush nominated Judge Roberts, Harriet Miers (who withdrew) and Judge Samuel Alito.”
Without casting the slightest aspersion on the character of people who (anonymously) conduct themelves this way, it’s pretty suggestive evidence of the vitriolic relations between Luttig and the White House.
I don’t know what conspiracy theory you’re referring to & I attribute bad faith to no one.
I don’t know Luttig, but those who do speak highly of him as a jurist. So I’m inclined to disagree with the administration’s view (if it indeed is their view) that he the dustup between them is the result of some sort of judicial tantrum.
It seems, now that the second story broke, that Luttig knew his nominating days (at least under this administration) were over.
But I don’t think it was too very brazen to suggest that it is very likely the next nominee, should Bush have the opportunity, will be a woman or minority, and that this played at least some role in Luttig’s thinking (as the linked article suggests).
I was quite critical of the Miers nomination; I believe legal conservativism to be far more important than Hannity-esque GOP partisanship.
I’m not as upset about Luttig’s departure from the bench as some others, though, simply because some of the people I’d like to see nominated are still available.
No one has diagreed with the notion that there’s nothing ‘too very brazen’ about predicting that Bush’s next nominee won’t be a white man. Luttig’s resignation, however, is weak evidence for the claim, esp. in light of evidence that, as we agree, wasn’t available when you first wrote. The resignation more plausibly suggests something else about the Bush administration, something perhaps less agreeable to its supporters.
Now, to further muddy the water, this afternoon Laura Rozen reported yet another theory: “… a knowledgable Washington reader J has a different take: ‘Shocked to see the Luttig resignation. You don’t give up a lifelong seat on a powerful appellate court to rake in some cash. My guess is that Luttig, who was a runner-up for the Roberts and Alito nominations, has been given a hint that he’s in line for the next opening. By resigning now, he can put away some serious cash for the family and avoid any controversial cases that could come up in a future confirmation hearing’.”
I leave it to others to describe the ways this contradicts the other accounts. Better, let us say no more about the matter, yes?