In the past 28 years, 20 of those years saw Republican presidents appointing federal judges to lifetime appointments. They focused almost solely on right-wing activists — many members of the Federalist Society or people who would easily fit into the faculty at Liberty University Law School — who care little about the wording or intent of the Constitution and only pursue a radical conservative agenda through the very judicial activism they decry. There were several rulings this week at the Supreme Court that fit this mold completely and one directly affecting Florida, that came from a lower federal court:
A federal judge has refused to block a new version of a Florida voter registration law that critics say could keep thousands of people from casting ballots this year.
The conservative argument on this one is nonsense — they say it is designed to fight voter fraud, something they provide no evidence exists in any significant way. But the law clearly causes voter disenfranchisement, something there is already a lot of. A ruling from early this year on picture identification requirement gives me no confidence that a higher court will overturn this. What it means is that activist conservative judges will be denying thousands of Floridians the lawful right to vote — many of them because of typos or filing errors made by low-paid government clerks, errors that won’t be obvious to any voter until they go to vote. Just when it becomes impossible to fix the problem.
Judge Mickle, the “conservative” judge who made this ruling was actually appointed by President Bill Clinton. He was recommended to the position by Senator Bob Graham.
Judge Mickle was also the judge that declared JEB!’s One Florida plan unconstitutional in 2004.
Also, Liberty University’s Law School wasn’t founded until 2004, has not yet been accredited and currently has no graduates sitting as a federal judge.
Finally, by way of example on the appointment of judges, of the 5 left leaning Justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court, 3 of them were appointed by Republican Presidents. The recently retired Justice O’Connor, who also leaned left, was also appointed by a Republican President.
On a historical note, unrelated to political positions, Judge Mickle was the first black graduate from the University of Florida. He was the second black graduate from UF Law. He was the first black lawyer in Alachua County. He was the first black judge on Florida’s 8th Circuit as well as the First District Court of Appeal.
You were right on one thing, that there aren’t currently any Liberty graduates on the federal judiciary. I corrected that.
Everything else you said was either wrong or irrelevant.
Mickel is clearly a conservative. Clinton and Graham are moderates, so it isn’t remotely far-fetched to believe they would support a candidate more conservative than themselves. Clinton appointed him in 1998, when he was under extreme attack from the right and would’ve had no chance of getting a more liberal judge through.
Mickle ruled part of One Florida unconstitutional because it wasn’t conservative enough. He attached it from the right, not the left.
Liberty University is, by the way, provisionally accredited, which means it is accredited and graduates have all the same things of graduates of any fully accredited school.
You seem to confuse party and ideology. Simply because someone is a Democrat doesn’t make them liberal. Most Democrats are moderate.
The Supreme Court has 5 conservative-leaning appointees. If you think otherwise then you haven’t paid attention to their rulings in the last two years, which have been overwhelmingly conservative, so much so that many of the rulings are clearly at odds with the Constitution and with constitutional law as it has stood for hundreds of years.
And if you actually pay attention to the post I wrote, I didn’t say this particular case was because of a Republican, I said that it “fit the mold.” Something that comes out of a mold is not the original thing, but something similar, a reproduction. Like Clinton from 1994-2000, when he lurched to the right to appease conservatives after they took control of Congress. The post says that “the judiciary” sucks because of Republican control. It doesn’t say “this judge” sucks because of Republican control.